Not An Act
by Juukai
Summary: Axel is a college sophomore with dreams of being an actor who just got assigned a transfer student as his new roommate. No one warned the poor pyro the new guy was a white haired sex god. AkuRiku, Zemyx, and random others. Yaoi.
1. Chapter 1: Of Redheads and Sex Gods

Summary: Axel is a college sophomore getting assigned a transfer student as his new roommate. No one warned the poor pyro the new guy was a white haired sex machine. AkuRiku, Zemyx, later DemxXiggy, and random others. Yaoi.

A/N: Hello all! Juukai reporting. Well, this is the first fanfic I've done in a long, long while, and I will wind on, I warn you. I like there to be a bit of substance in my writing, because I love to read stories that have 22 page chapters and the like. Now, if I go that far, I can't say how long this will actually end up being, but hopefully, as I get started, it will be long enough. Anyway, I know the summary sucked, but I do have somewhere I'm going with this. It's just hard to summarize in a few lines when I'm still working out the exact details myself, you know? Anyway, on with the disclaimer and story!

Disclaimer: If I owned any of the Kingdom Hearts characters, Riku would be my sex slave every second Tuesday, and the game would not have ended with half of the Organization members dead. To state the obvious, I do not own them, and don't claim to. I am a poor college student myself, so if you sue me, all you will get are the moths culminating in my wallet.

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**Chapter 1**

"Now, Riku, I expect you to behave properly at this new school. You should be grateful that I was able to get you in to a mainland school so close to the beginning of the next semester." Cold, glinting eyes locked on his, making a sour tone of voice unnecessary. "There are plenty of people out there who would kill for this opportunity. Prove that you are the one that deserves it."

Now, it is portrayed in movies and the like that farewell scenes go better than this just before one party steps on to a plane to go to a place that will potentially change his life forever. Most people only had bad dreams that goodbyes would go so bad with their parents as they went off to college, and were instead seen off with waving hands and teary eyes. But such was not always the case.

In his seat, a silver haired male was all but grinding his teeth in agitation. Riku's father had said those words and given him those looks mere moments ago. It was late in the night, the sun already having sunk below the horizon hours before, bathing small island towns and white sandy beaches in comforting darkness, and here he was, sitting in a crowded row on a crowded airplane, traveling to a crowded city on the mainland.

As it stood, this plane trip would only take two hours, bringing him to one of the larger islands in the Destiny formation. At that airport, he would wait for an hour until it was time for his next flight to leave at three thirty in the morning. Then he would be sitting on another such plane for the better part of six hours.

The annoying voice of one of the stewardesses came over the intercom, announcing that they had reached the altitude where electronics not emitting signals were allowed. It was late, so, like half of the rest of the passengers, he put his earphones on, turned the music up loud enough to eliminate most of the drone from the engines, and closed his eyes, hoping to take a small nap before he had to be up to move to his next gate.

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It was raining heavily when his last plane pulled up to its gate. The rain had started on Destiny Island's main airport, and it seemed to have followed them all the way to the mainland. The whole six hours that they had flown below the clouds the patter of water drops never lightened up, and when they flew above those clouds, there was a field of angry and roiling gray as far as the eye could see outside the windows. The pilot informed them when they landed that it was only in this city that it was raining, and that the humidity level in surrounding areas, such as Traverse Town, had risen, so they would be sunny and hot until the storms reached there. He'd have to look it up later and see when it was planned for his new campus to get drenched.  
Riku was also informed that the time on the mainland was two hours ahead of him, and instead of the time being nine in the morning, it was currently a quarter past eleven. The rain had slowed them down. He was supposed to meet his new roommate in less than an hour.

Finding his baggage was simple; they were two soft blue duffel bags filled to the point of nearly bursting, but the hardest part was finding a taxi in the rush of people coming from their own planes.

"I need to go to the Traverser's Storage Center," he grumbled once he finally flagged one down. There was more stuff that he needed to pick up for his new college home. He had already sent some of his personal items ahead, and had bought a few things, all of which his father had sent there, bargaining with the owner until a deal was made over the phone. They only needed to go pick these things up, and then he could go to the school, and hope to whatever Gods above that they weren't too late. The stop really didn't take long, after they wove their way drunkenly through traffic. And after they dealt with the fact that his incompetent driver didn't know which way was up in the big, bustling city. After flashing his ID to the man behind the counter and a few minutes of awkward conversing, he finally managed to convince the man behind the desk that he was, in fact, the Staley kid, and was led to the storage room that was designated his. They packed the remainder of his things into the taxi trunk and half of the backseat. Growling his new destination to the driver, he positioned himself on the clear patch of the backseat, looking out the window as his mood began to darken and darken.

"Not long now," the cabdriver informed him, glancing at the back seat via the review mirror.

Riku's head lifted, silver hair falling into his sea tinted eyes, and he took notice of the surroundings passing the window he was glaring out of for the first time since they had turned off the main road. He could see a tower starting to peak above the trees that lined the street and inhabited the yards of the rural area that the driver had taken a "short cut" through. In reality, it must have been the man's first time driving from the airport to the college, which meant he must have been new to the job, if not fairly new to the town. He'd managed to waste an hour of their time. Which was not a good thing since it was now 1:26, according to his digital watch, and he was supposed to meet his new roommate, one Axel Flynn, at noon. This wasn't the best way to make sure they started off on the right foot. And he didn't have the guy's number to call if he'd decided to go inside or to eat or something.

The tower was getting bigger and bigger now, and the homes had stopped all at once, as if there had been a building force field set in place. The land that stretched in front of his eyes now was undeveloped, save for a curve lining the road. He guessed they just wanted to keep a little bit of a land barrier between the rest of the community and a possibly crazy college population.

Now he could see that the tower was a bell tower. There was no clock face on it, but he could see the bells from the taxi. There was a small cross atop the tower, reminding Riku of a more gothic style architecture. Odd, considering there were no such buildings in Traverse Town normally. The taxi had managed to find a space just big enough amongst the rest of the crowd of students flooding in. This was, after all, the school to go to. Traverse Town itself was huge, packed to the brim with occupants. It wasn't that there was a stampede of people entering; it was more like there were a lot trickling in and taking up the space of the small entry way to the underclassmen dorms.

Riku had the sneaking suspicion that half the people he saw vaguely wouldn't be staying. They were just helping others move in, most likely.

"Stop outside the gate." The driver looked back at him in surprise.

"That'll be a long way to cart your stuff…You sure?" He sounded concerned, but his blinker was already on. The guy might have been new, but at least he knew to follow directions.

"I'm meeting someone in front," was all the explanation he gave. This guy was a stranger, anyway, so why would he care?

"Alright, kid. Whatever you say…" Riku glared at the back of the man's seat. Kid? He hadn't been a kid for years—hell, he was a sophomore in college now! And it wasn't like he was as short as Sora, so there wasn't even that excuse for the embarrassing tag. He was proud to be just a hair's breadth under six feet tall. It was an ideal height for a guy his age, and no one had been able to convince him otherwise.

The driver miraculously managed to find a spot between a blue SUV and green truck that looked like it had more power than anyone outside of the military would need in a vehicle. The man piled his bags onto the sidewalk and, after collecting his fee from the absolutely lost student, left Riku standing there with one bag on his shoulder and his other possessions at his side. He glanced across the small stretch of grass that lay before the gates, hoping desperately, though the emotion never leaked past his mask of indifference, that his roommate had decided to wait for him anyway. He knew his room number and his hall name, but that wasn't much to go on since he didn't even know where the hall was to begin with.

Rolling his shoulders a little, he decided that if the need arose, he could try sweet-talking some girl into telling him the way to go. It wouldn't be that hard.

'Look out, Traverse Town; Destiny Island's Sex God is here.'

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A lone figure stood by said gates to the massive building, glaring down at the watch on his wrist as if this piece of metal and cog-work was responsible for his hour long wait. Had he known it would take this long, he would have brought down something to entertain him while he leaned against a tree. His iPod, maybe, or a sketchpad. Or food, since it was getting so late and he hadn't had lunch yet. Hell, he hadn't even eaten breakfast; that was a meal he usually made a point to avoid unless there was something tempting enough to make a saint sin on the menu. His stomach was presently grumbling away reminding him of that fact. But he could wait, since he knew that this guy had no idea what was where and all that. He knew the guy was new, because he didn't know him or of him. It wasn't a case of knowing of his knowing every student's name on campus, but he knew most of them, except for a chunk of upperclassmen, which he wouldn't have been roomed with anyway. He really didn't feel like ditching the new guy, anyway; he could be cruel, but he wasn't that bad.

Not at all being the shy type, he had already deposited all his earthly belongings in the room he was soon to share, keeping all his junk cluttered on his side of the room until his roommate arrived and he could tell if the guy would be the neat-freak type or not. Their room wasn't that big. There would be just barely enough space for them both to live comfortably if the two beds and desks were positioned correctly. He was just hoping that there wouldn't end up being a tape-line appearing down that tiled floor or anything like that if the new guy took his playful banter the wrong way. But he wasn't about to censor himself. If worse came to worse, he might be able to get Demyx to be his roomy…

Now he was left waiting with absolutely nothing to do but watch students filter in. Absently, he'd begun to pick out the hot girls, noting which he might have to talk to later. And, being secure in his masculinity and admittedly bisexual, he had no trouble admitting to himself that some of the males walking by were breath-takers themselves. None of them were Roxas Level, though some were close enough to catch his eye. But then, you had to have at least an ounce of looks to be a successful actor, right? Never heard of some ugly guy being as famous as Brad Pitt, after all.

A hand reached back, scratching the back of his head through his spiky red hair. Fatal boredom was written in his vivid green eyes as he sought this mysterious 'Riku'. At least he had been smart enough to wear a pair of baggy black shorts and a maroon short-sleeved shirt that had the words "Smokin' HOT" scrawled across the front in yellow and orange to keep him cool. He loved the heat and the sun, but even he had to admit that there was a point when no one looked good in sweat. Taking another quick sweep of the area in front of the gate, his gaze fell upon a light haired youth standing there with his stuff. Not moving among the sea of people, really. Pushing off from the tree, he moved expertly between people (one did not take the trains in Twilight Town during rush hour without learning this skill), and openly looked the teen up and down.

"Your name wouldn't happen to be Riku Staley, would it?" He asked, pulling the sheet that held his room-mate-to-be's name from his pocket and flashing it. There wasn't any of the formerly felt frustration in his voice, just obvious curiosity and a hint of friendliness. He was a people person, after all! One had to know how to get on people's good sides to get anywhere in life. Even with the slightly guarded, lost look in this guy's eyes, from the side-profile he had, this guy was blowing all the other guys here out of the water on the Hotty Scale.

Riku turned his head to the person addressing him, surprise written openly on his face when he caught sight of who exactly wanted his attention. To put it simply, the red head matched his shirt perfectly. And if this guy was Axel - the name on his dorm information sheet - then Riku could already tell that this was going to be interesting. He was a free man now, since Sora and he split a few weeks before Riku went to TTU audition. Sora and he were more like friends with benefits anyway. Really good benefits, but that's beside the point. Right now was what mattered and the red head that currently had his attention.

"Oh, so you know of me already? I'd give you an autograph if I could, but alas, my hands are full." Riku teased, motioning to the luggage that he was cursed to carry around. It wasn't much trouble. Riku made sure to stay in shape, but it brought down his image, wrinkling the sleeveless white vest that exposed his toned stomach as his baggy blue jeans hung comfortably on his hips with a black studded belt. He flicked his silver colored hair over his shoulder the best he could, trying to move the hair that hung in his face, sticking to his skin from a thin layer of sweat that coated his brow. It was only an added bonus that the movement made his strange, teal hued eyes stand out more.

Axel blinked for a second, his brain registering a deeper voice than he expected to go along with the looks and the killer eyes, his mind immediately adding another point to Riku's Hot Score. Then he grinned. With those first few words he knew that they were going to get along great. The guy had exactly his kind of sense of humor. "Well damn. I forgot my autograph book, but here I was hoping that you'd sign my chest…" He physically deflated, hunching in assumed disappointment, his expression that of a youth's whose hopes had just been smashed underfoot like a cockroach.

Riku's grin matched Axel's earlier one as he shook his head at the other. Maybe he'd take the redhead up on that offer later, after exploring that area thoroughly himself…He happened to personally agree with the message on Axel's shirt. The green-eyed male was definitely hot, though he couldn't say if he was smoking or not at the moment, or if it was just the effect of the heat of the sun.

Realizing that he had left Axel hanging, he decided that it was time for a subject change. "I'm being an ass. Are you Axel Flynn? You really didn't have to wait…Sorry for being late. I'm not used to the city yet." Riku would admit to that. He would not say that he got lost however; that would be a kick in the face to his pride. He had merely…tried to take the scenic routes. More than once. Stupid taxi driver.

Axel just nodded, straightening back up to his impressive height. Riku guessed the guy had to be around six foot three or something, since he had a good few inches over Riku. Vaguely, Riku wondered what kind of giants were being bred wherever this guy came from. But then, the guy was talking again already. "Yep. That's what the dregs of humanity call me, anyway. Commit it to memory." There seemed to be a private joke buried deep within that phrase, if the wide smile on Axel's face was anything to go by.

"Enough waiting though, I'm ready for something cool to drink. Hopefully the dorm's close." Riku muttered that last bit as he bent to pick up another one of his bags and sling it over his free shoulder via the strap.

Axel eyed the rest of the luggage ruefully. He was definitely glad that he had already hauled all of his own junk upstairs, with help from any stragglers he could con into the job, anyway. "Want any help, there, oh new victim- I mean roommate of mine?"

One eyebrow rose at Axel, lips quirking wryly. "Thanks." Oh, so Axel thought he'd be the one taking the bullying, huh? He'd soon find that Riku could give as good as he got. In the meantime, he was getting a free laborer.

"Got any valuables I can crush, or is there something fragile enough in all of these to keep me entertained?" He asked, hoisting one bag onto his own shoulders and grabbing the handle of one other, scooping a box up in his free hand and tucking it against his body to keep his grip on it steady. It was thin, and relatively easy to handle. Probably a desk chair that was waiting to be assembled, or something like that.

"Ha, ha. You're a riot. Lead the way." The cheeky grin he got made him want to kick Axel in the shins. But the campus-wise sophomore started moving without any such prodding, so Riku figured that he'd let him off for now. Next time would be a completely different story.

"Don't worry so much! It's not like we're doing much today, anyway. Today's just unpacking and picking up our IDs. Classes don't start until next Tuesday." It was Thursday, but Riku could understand the need for the wait. For those students who didn't get their schedule set up ahead of time, they needed a couple of days to make them out and let the professors know the new role count, and new students who planned on majoring or minoring in their field.

"Is the dorm hall close, at least?" Riku asked, staring hard at Axel's back in his hope.

"Close dorm? Nah, suppose they still don't trust sophomores with staying too close to the gates, for whatever reason. Or some juniors. Our dorm hall has a mix of both. Kinda weird, huh? Only freshmen and seniors get their own dorm halls. Guess maybe it's so they don't scare all the little Freshies, and so the seniors don't have to worry about underclassmen getting in their way or making it too loud to concentrate on projects and thesis's…Anyway! We're up on the second floor. Could be worse. There're three in our hall, and we could have been on top and farthest from the stairs! One of my buddies had a room like that last year. Only seniors get flat dorms, lucky bastards."

By the time Axel paused in his relentless talking, he had set down one of Riku's bags and was digging in his pocket for a key into their hall. Try as he might, Riku couldn't make himself grasp all of what Axel was saying in its entirety. But he was sure he'd soon understand the workings of the rooms and dorm halls. It was just a matter of spending as much time on campus as his roomy had. From what he had been able to see as they wandered towards their dorm between other students, the campus wasn't that intimidating. It was bigger than Destiny Island College, but considering this was a main land University, that was expected. It was just a little more…compact than he thought it would be. He expected it to be as big as some of the campus's he'd seen online or in brochures.

The door burst open, a grinning redhead pushing his way in as the door attempted to bounce back at him, and he called for Riku to hurry and follow him. Wasting no time, Axel set Riku's bags down on the remaining vacant bed, his own on the other side of the room successfully coated in his crap.

"Take a good look now, 'cause it won't be getting any prettier." He shoved one of his own boxes aside with his foot to clear a bit more space for Riku, and then perched himself nimbly on the one corner of his bed that wasn't completely overrun by bags and boxes. Once settled, he looked up at Riku, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Riku sighed, letting himself continue to enjoy the air conditioning, more so now that he wasn't having to trek up stairs behind struggling or just plain slow movers. Setting his own bags aside, he left ample room for himself on his bed, perfectly intent on resting for a few minutes before he even thought of unpacking. And he wanted to recline, not twist himself into a pretzel just to sit like it had looked like Axel was about to do for a moment there.

Deciding it would be a good moment to look over his new roomy, he began his assessment. 'Feisty… Don't touch him and stay out of his way is basically what his aura seems to scream. He also looks like he's pretty used to people avoiding him, just by seeing him that brief second before he approached me at the gate, even if he seems like a people person.' Riku's critique moved to the more physical aspects of Axel. 'He's tall. And damn, that hair doesn't help that fact! I didn't think you ever saw spikes like that outside of an anime unless you were looking at some punk-rock-wannabe. Even those guys would be jealous of that hair. And that ass! I know I was trying to be innocent, but with him shoving it right in my face coming up the stairs as he avoided people, it was hard to miss. I definitely noticed how those jeans seemed to be just hanging on to those hips when he stopped to help someone with a falling TV and his shirt rode up…' Riku wasn't usually a horn dog by nature, but he was a young man. He had some overworking hormones. And Axel, he could easily admit, was sexy. 'I can only hope that we'll get along…' Even in his thoughts, there was a certain amount of cynicism in that sentence.  
Well, he'd waited long enough before saying something to Axel, and by now the redhead was giving him a perplexed look.

"Don't worry about the room, man. I can't stand things being too neat. Just as long as you keep the bugs you call on your side of the room, we're good." He tucked his hands behind his head, fully aware of the fact that his vest moving up to expose more of his stomach than normal. He knew Axel was staring, too, but he was busy pretending to inspect the ceiling. Where those glow in the dark stars? What the-

"So, where are you coming to our humble campus from?" Axel didn't sound distracted, at least. He had good resolve… It would be fun cracking it. On a daily basis.

"I doubt you've heard of it. Little set of islands off the coast. Do the names Destiny Islands right any bells?" He was expecting the shake of the head he got in response. "I wouldn't think so. You seem a bit too pale to be the island-goer type. What about you, though? Are you from around here?" Axel's pale skin and thin frame suggested that he was a typical indoors city kid.

"Hey, cool your jets. Your place sounds familiar…But you're right in assuming I don't know it. I'm not much of a beach person. Just don't understand why people would go on a perfectly fine day to a place where all they're going to do is lay on their towels. Now, if the water was cold, that's another matter. But otherwise, get your ass up and play!" But, hell, he would have gone to a beach for a vacation if someone had told him there'd be hotties like this waiting for him on the not-so-well-known shores! "Well, I'm from all over, actually. We moved around a lot until I decided to go out on my own. I even lived here in Traverse Town for three years a while back. But outside of school, I'm based in Twilight Town." Where Roxas is… Axel quickly recovered from his slight falter. "My family's still there, too, for now. So it's kinda nice."

"Alright, alright. My mistake." Riku held up his hands in peace, sitting up again and moving the hair from his face. "We have to go get our ID's by five, right?"

"Yeah. Guess we better get settled, huh? That way we can make it down there and to dinner…And we can pick up your keys on the way out. So move your shit before I throw mine on it so I can move." As if showing he wasn't bluffing, he tossed on box off his bed, and it almost landed on Riku's bag that was closest to him.

"Watch it! You break anything of mine and you'll be in for it." Riku wasn't all that worried. He turned away from Axel as me moved to start unpacking the stuff on his bed first, but he kept watching the redhead from the corner of his eye. Just in case.

" Promise?" There was a challenge in Axel's voice that made Riku turn to look at him fully. The redhead had cleared his bed of all but one box, which he was depositing on top of another. It was the foot that was raised in the general direction of Riku's blue duffel bag that made him raise an eyebrow.

"I'll give you to the count of three to move that foot before I do." He could see the gleam in Axel's eye brighten.

"One." The foot raised further into kicking position.

"Two." Axel's smirk grew.

"Three!" The kick missed, but only because Axel was suddenly experiencing an extreme sense of vertigo. He was vaguely aware for a brief second that he was falling before a rock hard mattress stopped his fall. His breath left him when a body equally as heavy as his landed on top of him and he felt legs immediately straddle his waist. Riku's eyes sparkled in victory as he sat atop his opponent, hands setting low on his own hips while a smirk that matched his eyes grew on his face. Axel swallowed audibly, hardly daring to breath, let alone move.

Being a kendo star on his islands, Riku was confident that he could win any tussle Axel could, (and probably would) instigate, since the guy didn't seem the 'uke' type, so he was perfectly intent on teasing his captive. With one hand he spider walked his index and middle finger from Axel's stomach to the middle of his chest slowly.

"Don't test me," he warned, the smirk never fading from his face or deceptively bright eyes, "I don't have much patience." Hearing a slight echo down the hall, Riku realized that the door was still open, but he didn't care. He had a point to get across. "Better be careful."  
Axel's eyes had darkened considerably in surprise, not only at Riku's words given their current position, but at his actions and the blatant challenge when it was already obvious that Axel couldn't help but do whatever he was told not to. Before he could even get the grin on his face, Axel had hooked his legs sideways and trapped Riku's just behind the knee. Without giving Riku any time to react, he flipped them over, closer to the wall. He was practically radiating pride as he leered down at Riku.

"Thought you could win that easy, huh? Got news for you, Beach Boy, I may not look like much, but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve." He grabbed Riku's hips, leaning in a little closer. "And it looks like you've got enough patience for this room arrangement to stay interesting."

"You know, for a second there, I had almost thought that you'd accepted you're place," Riku admitted, smiling coyly up at the slowly advancing man.

"Nah, I know my place. It's above you," came the cheeky, slightly husky taunting reply.

"Last warning." Riku felt the hold that Axel's legs still had around his, and knew that he wouldn't be able to twist his hips enough to turn them back over. So, it was time to show Axel that there was more to being 'seme' than being on top.

" Please. What's the worst that could hap-" He was quickly shut up.

Riku's hands fisted into Axel's shirt, and with a sharp jerk, he forced all of the taller youth's weight onto himself. When Axel was lying practically on top of him, he wound his arms comfortably around his neck, tan fingers messing vibrant red spikes as his palms settled against heating skin. Riku refused to let anyone top him, and if Axel thought that just by flipping them over he was on top, then Riku was going to prove that being seme was all about personality and knowing how to get results.

"Told you not to test me." Riku said, holding his head up in order to lock his lips to the eccentric redhead.

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Alright! First chapter's done. As I get back into the swing of school and the like it might take me a while to get the next chapter up, but I'll be working on it, promise! Reviews are always welcome and wanted! They make great fuel for the author.


	2. Chapter 2: Short Kisses and Settling In

A/N: Sorry that this took a while. I was hoping to update annually, or something like that, but with my school schedule still being rocky, I don't know how often I'll be able to make it. Let's try for every Monday, for now, with surprise chapters popping up as I write faster or my muse beats me over the head with random blunt items supplied by my evil roommate/beta #2. Anyway, storeh teim:'D

Disclaimer: I does not own any of the characters that will be showing up in this fic over the span of the story, unless otherwise noted. I do not make money off this story. Don't sue, or I'll just send you the spider webs in my wallet and count my debt as paid.

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**Chapter 2**

Axel's eyes widened comically as soft lips actually met his own. While he had been instigating his own end of the kiss, he hadn't really expected it to happen. Though the redhead was a very confident being (and knew what he wanted and would do what he needed in order to get it), even he wasn't used to kissing guys he hadn't even known for more than a half an hour unless he was flat out, drop-dead drunk. With all this swirling in his brain, he surprised himself by leaning into the kiss, eyes slipping closed. He felt Riku shift up against him, lips working against his own, making him gasp. A tongue came up and brushed against his bottom lip, despite how his mouth was already slightly open, and he leaned forward into the touch.

Riku, under the heating redhead, smirked. He could feel the warmth gathering in Axel's neck before spreading to color his cheeks. The worst, hmm? Axel wanted to know the worst. And when he melted into the kiss, trying, hilariously, to be dominant despite the blush staining his pale skin, Riku took that moment to slip his tongue between Axel's lips after nipping his lips just slightly to coax the other into a tongue battle without bothering to wait for a sign that such a bold move would be okay. He played with Axel just enough to get him going…

Just before he pulled away, holding his forearm against Axel's chest so that the taller teen had no choice but to stay back, Riku broke the kiss that had been started with every intention of teasing his cocky roommate. It wasn't hard to tell that Axel had been interested in continuing, but Riku wouldn't. Wouldn't continue, that is.

Axel had asked for it.

"I can change my mind," he all but purred, obviously unaffected by the situation.

Green eyes opened into an automatic glare above him, the color electrified with indignation and something a bit more primal, something buried a little further under the surface that was harder to identify. A soft noise left his throat, something akin to a growl. In his defense, it was not as pitiful in pitch and emotion as it could have been; this sounded manlier, at least. That glare only intensified when he saw the smug expression ghosting across the tanner face of the boy beneath him. Another growl escaped him as his muscles bunched; Axel was fully prepared to muscle his way into another kiss.

"Axel, man, I haven't seen you since the last pizza party before classes ended – OH JESUS!" A loud voice proclaimed as the owner took the open door as an invitation to come into the room. The teen standing there clenched his eyes shut, and, for good measure, covered them with his hands. He was only a little shorter than Riku was, by the look of him, and was dressed in a pair of khaki pants and a light green shirt. His hair was slightly two-toned, and Riku was surprised to see a lighter brown mohawk, and slightly darker sides and an almost-mullet peaking around his neck.

Spinning around, the stranger threw the words, "Axel, you find me later, we need to catch up," over his shoulder, and decided to retreat back down the hall. The last time he had walked in unannounced on Axel…never mind, it just wasn't good to go about invoking Axel's fury. There was a crash in the hallway, signaling that he had indeed fled.

"Demyx…" The name was drawn out with murderous intent in every syllable as the redhead went to the door and slammed it shut. He spun around, noticing immediately that Riku had moved off of his bed and was beginning to unpack. Axel sighed, running a hand through his hair, coaxing his spikes back into place as best he could, before he went to follow Riku's example. As he began sifting through boxes he kept his back to the silver haired boy, pouting. 'Who wouldn't pout a little after that? Can you say sexual frustration?'

He was starting to go through the box full of all his drawer stuff, planning on unpacking in a whirl so he could go talk to Demyx and see about dinner and all that exciting stuff. His first order of business was to start putting everything in its "proper" drawer in his desk. He knew Riku wouldn't fall for this silent treatment; he'd been just a little too eager in that kiss for something to like this cold shoulder to make him think that there was some boundary that had been crossed, but he could try. It only took him a couple minutes to have his desk all nice and cluttered with his random decorations and his laptop and all the stuff that went with it. He was then moving on to his want-to-be-dresser. It was five shelves high and there were two rows of them, but one side would be Riku's. He claimed the ones closest to his closet and bed, and started pulling band logoed shirts and random smartass comment covered shirts and loading them up. He left the middle drawer as his junk drawer, and then loaded pajamas into another. Yet another were his shorts and pants, and then the last was the ever important underwear and sock drawer. There was already a mirror above the drawers with a light switch and a few outlets. That was also where the cable for the room came in. Axel had, thankfully, brought a TV, as well as a game system and a few necessary games.

Another box held all his sheets and pillows for his bed, and he quickly made it up. The sheets were maroon with indiscernible patterns on the surface. One pillow was this same color, while another was straight black. The comforter that was set atop the bed was half black and half black. On the black side, a burgundy Chinese dragon twisted with jagged scales and wickedly sharp teeth, straining to get to the pillows as if they were his enemy. On the other, a black dragon imitated the red one perfectly, except that his goal was for the other end of the bed. The last item to be put away didn't even need to be unpacked; it was a black guitar case with random stickers all over it that was propped up in the corner by Axel's closet. There were still two boxes left, but he just kicked into his closet, with a mumbled, "don't need 'em now, I'll go through them later." He was feeling lazy.

Riku wasn't far behind him in all this work. He'd merely gone in an opposite order as Axel. He'd unpacked everything for his bed first, getting it set up before climbing atop it to hang some of his surviving posters and random photographs from years past on the walls. Then he moved on to get everything moved into his closet, organizing as he unpacked. Yes, he'd told Axel that he couldn't stand things too clean, but that didn't mean that he didn't like knowing where something was when he needed it. And since he was already getting that done, he figured that he'd finish the job and do his drawers. By the time he was nearly done, unpacking his sleeping clothes and tossing aside a now empty bag, his roommate was already standing beside his own bed, hands on his hips.

"How much longer are you going to take, Ri?" He asked, already having come up with a nickname for Riku. Even two syllables were proving to be too long for him at the moment. "I wanna go see Demyx, the guy who came running in earlier, before we go and pick up our IDs and stuff." Wasn't it just amazing that after pouting, he was trying to play it cool? Like he was just Mr. Thing himself all of a sudden, and naught of this world could phase him.

'Uh, no. That's not going to work,' Riku could feel his eyebrow twitching.

"Ri?" He repeated, turning around from shoving the blue bag under his bed. "You can't be serious, _Axy_. Don't call me that."That was his nickname when he was a little kid, and no man in their right mind wanted to be called the name from his childhood. It wasn't even like his name was all that long! "Ri-ku. Two syllables. Not that hard." His eyes narrowed just slightly. It might not have been so bad, but he hardly knew Axel, regardless of their potentially great make out session.

"Don't call me Axy, then." Axel smirked back, tucking away the fact that Riku didn't like nicknames that much, apparently. Riku had no idea that Axel loved handing out nicknames, and usually they weren't that bad, but for Riku, he'd make an exception. "Anyway, we going or not, Beach Boy?"

Riku growled at him, eyes narrowing even further as he pushed past Axel, who was bowing mockingly and signaling towards the door. Checking his pockets quickly for his keys, wallet, and phone, he closed the door behind him, locking it with the set of room keys he'd just acquired earlier that day. He led Riku down the hall cheerfully, eyeing one door as they passed it. Riku was just able to catch the words 'R.A. Vincent Valentine' before Axel's fists were blocking the letters as he banged it while he walked by. The door opened, and an exasperated sigh greeted their backs.

"Axel. Don't start already." Came the deep, monotonic voice that Riku could only guess was Vincent.

Axel spun around, hands behind his head as he laughed. "C'mon, Vinny! Gotta keep you on your toes!"

Riku turned as well, getting a good look at their R.A. He was tall, with long, straight black hair. He wore a zip up hoody, crimson in color, over a black-faded-to-gray shirt, and black pants. There was a red bandana tied like a headband across his forehead, and Riku had to take a second look at his eyes to be sure that he had the color right. But even the second time, Vincent's eyes looked red.

"I've told you before, Axel, not to call me that." Axel only cackled in response, moving on down the hall, presumably to Demyx's room.

"How do you already know where he is?" Riku asked idly as they went, looking at the names on each door. He hadn't noticed before, but they all had the names of their occupants on them. Most of the doors were open, and he could see that the boys were all unpacking.

"Got a hold of him via email a week ago and made him tell me his room number. Of course, I told him mine, too. Which is why he knew where I was…um…earlier," Axel trailed off, turning a little pink in the cheeks, making Riku snicker.

They came to the door with the names "Demyx O'Donohue" and "Xigbar Otsuka" written messily on respective green and blue construction paper. Of course, Axel took the lead. Like with Vincent's door, he began to bang on it. It wasn't until Axel spoke that Riku knew it was different.

Axel deepened his voice, shouting out, "campus security, open up!" The difference was: he was being more of an ass. Axel then dropped his voice to just talk to Riku. "The kid's adorable. Falls for this every time. He's as intellectual as swiss cheese, but a good guy. Would never hurt a fly. Hell, he'd probably run from it." Yes, he liked picking on Demyx, even when the poor guy wasn't around to defend himself.

Riku rolled his eyes as he let his arms hang comfortably by his sides, his hands finding his pockets and burying themselves there. Soon, there was the sound of someone on the other side of the door stumbling over things in a rush to answer quickly. Swiss cheese indeed. A couple apologies and "hang on's" later, the door was thrown open, and the same mowhawk-ed boy from before stared out wide-eyed and slightly fearful before realization hit, and the look on his face was of one who could not decide whether he was going to close the door in his friend's face or not.

"You ass. I don't see you all summer and the first thing you do is pull that on me!" Demyx complained, reaching out to punch his friendly lightly on the shoulder before moving aside and motioning them inside. Demyx blushed a deeper shade than Axel had just moments before upon seeing Riku, remembering the scene that he had walked in on.

"Shnikies, guys, sorry about earlier…the door was wide open, and I didn't think…I wouldn't have walked in if I'd known. So-"

"Demyx, right? Don't worry about it. We were only messing around. Name's Riku," the acting student introduced himself, looking around the room, eyes landing on where Axel was rubbing his shoulder like an invalid, before his eyebrow ticked. "Wait. Did you just say 'shnikies'?"

"Yep. That's DemDem for you! Dem, could you move that monstrosity of yours so that we can sit down if we want?" Axel moved at just the right angle, allowing Riku the sight of what he assumed was Demyx's bed. He rose the same eyebrow that had twitched at the sight of a strange guitar…cello…hybrid looking…thing.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Riku!" Demyx turned his attention to Axel quickly, hands on his hips as he glared. "You sound just like my new roommate! Xiggles, or whatever his name is." His attitude changed dramatically from offended to slightly worried. "He's scary. I ask to be put closer to the music building, and they put me in with a junior that looks, acts, and credits-wise is a senior!" The boy shuddered.

"Xiggles…? I think you mean Xigbar. It's on your door, Demyx. It's not that hard to remember. Besides, the guy might look like he was on the wrong end of a lawn mower, but he's cool. I know him a little from last year. He hangs out with Lexaues, Namine, and the rest of them. And seriously, dude, don't you have a stand for your stupid sitar for situations like this?" Obviously, Axel really wanted to sit down.

"I still say he's a creepy pirate," Demyx muttered, turning his back on Axel as he set up the stand of which Axel spoke. "Edym is not stupid, and don't you dare call him that!"

"…You named…your sitar. And it's a guy? You have your hands on a guy all day, every day? You're sicker than I thought." He handed Demyx the blue giant as soon as Dem was ready. Riku coughed to cover his snicker, enjoying the red blush of indignation that crossed Demyx's cheeks as he rounded on Axel.

"You can take your 'sicker' comment and shove it up your-"

"Now, now, is that any way to talk when we came over here to see if you wanted to go down to get our IDs and stuff and then go out to dinner?" Axel asked smugly, inspecting his fingernails before looking up at Demyx with gleaming green eyes.

"What? Really? Please, oh Axel the Great, Ruler of all that is Red and Shiny, forgive me. I am only a peasant, a starving one at that, who does not know when to hold his tongue." He wiggled his eyebrows at Axel, and clapped his hands together. "Can we go now? I'll be good!"

"'Ruler of all that is Red and Shiny'? Demyx, where does half the shit that comes out of your mouth come from?" Axel questioned as both he and Riku gave the slighter boy a strange look. "Ah, anyway, let's beat it. We need to get Riku his keys before those other lazy R.A.'s take off. Cousin Vinny's already in his room, so it's probably not long until the others follow."

The three started to file out of the room, Demyx last so that he could lock up behind them. "You know, he hates it when you call him Vinny. You should probably stop before he starts looking for reasons to write you up…I say for punishment of mangling people's names, you treat for dinner!" He laughed, the sound as close to a giggle that Riku had ever seen a guy Demyx's age make.

"I pay?" Axel spluttered, nearly stopping in the hallway as he turned a glare on Demyx over his shoulder.

"Yeah. I've got a gig coming up next week, so I can take us out after then…"

"I'm all for that," Riku chimed in, adding his two cents as they left the room, but only after Demyx had checked the hall for any signs of his roommate.

Finding the coast clear, the musician locked his door, and waited for Axel and Riku to get the proper distance away from him. He then took a running start, his shoes slapping harshly against the tile, the sound alerting Axel that his buddy was quickly closing in on his back. Seconds later, a foreign weight settled on his back, and gangly arms and legs wrapped around his neck and waist. Demyx knew that Axel could carry him, for a while anyway, and he liked getting piggy back rides with the redhead. He was nice and tall, so he got a better view than when he was on his own two feet.

"I should just dump you on your ass one day," Axel grumbled, though his grin, and the fact that his arms latched around Demyx's legs to support the man, gave him away. He really didn't care when Demyx did this, as long as he wasn't currently trying to sweet talk someone or was otherwise entertained. "And I ain't carrying your ass down those stairs, got it?" There was vigorous nodding against his back.

Vincent's door was open when they passed it again, and red eyes watched them suspiciously for a second or two before their owner presumably went back about his own business. When they came to the stair well, Axel unceremoniously dumped Demyx, and began to descend, knowing that the resilient brunette would be fine.

Picking up Riku's keys took no time at all, and without bothering to check and see if they worked, they left and went to the office that most of the other students that were out and about were filing towards. There was a long line waiting for the pictures to be taken, and the man taking them wasn't doing much to try and make the line move quickly, either. He was an older gentleman, only making the "young whippersnappers" stand on the duct tape X before he took the shot. He didn't care if they did anything in the picture, just as long as he didn't catch anything dirty in the viewing square right before he snapped the picture.

Axel and Demyx both used this to their advantage. Riku just took a normal picture, looking extremely bored with eyes half closed. Somehow, Axel noted later, he was able to do that without looking high. Demyx hooked his thumb in a pointing gesture towards thin air, making a thumbs up with his other hand with a big smile plastered on his face. On the ID card, he was actually pointing towards his name, making Riku roll his eyes when he saw it. Axel had pulled a lighter out and flicked it until the flame whooshed to life. In the small photo on his card, it almost looked like he was trying to manipulate the fire, a wicked look on his face.

"You two are such weirdos." Was all Riku could say as they all started towards the student parking lot.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Well, there it is! It's kinda a filler chapter, I know…But the next one will be amusing, I swear! -

Rosalyn Angel: I am a big fan of their banter and power struggles myself. :D The chest quote was one of my favorite lines when I was writing this, too. This whole story started out as an rp between a friend of mine on Deviantart and I, and we already planned for there to be smexing, so neither of us minded it moving so fast. When I was weeding through the rp to make this fic, I decided to keep it, because it gives that first edge that lets everyone know that there will be some sexual tension there. Thank you! Keep reading and reviewing for me, okay? 3

Mizuki hikari: I shall, as long as you promise to keep reading. -

catchmeloon: Yes, Riku is smexy, isn't he:3 You just have to do those two justice and make them as arrogant as you can possibly stand without reaching Xemnas proportions.

hyperactive crazygurl95: Thank you so much! Hope you enjoyed this new chapter. I love this pairing too, now that I know about it. I think we just need to introduce more people to it. D

Casmut: Lol, Riku has such an ego. I couldn't keep that little tidbit out, it just wouldn't be like him (pre-emo darkness, and a little post emo-ness, anyway). Thank you for complimenting the detail. I always try to make it easy for the reader to jump right into how I imagine things. Were you expecting the interrupter to be Demyx? XD Snicker Poor boy, I think they might have almost scarred him.


	3. Chapter 3: Baily's and Vodka

A/N: I FAIL IN AN EPIC WAY!!! I'm so sorry, guys….Shot Hopefully this won't happen again. I'm abolishing my every Monday thing I put up last time so you people don't expect it when I end up not being able to deliver. But try to stick with me for the long haul, ne? Don't know where I'm going yet, but with this cast I've got lined up, it's bound to be amusing and rather smexy. I swear, for all the fans that have rabid otakus inside, there will later be some lemon chapters. Can't say between whom yet, but you should already know one of them for sure, given an earlier kiss scene that everyone enjoyed. Anyway, on with the show!

Disclaimer: I really don't own these characters. Promise. So, if you decide that I'm making money off Kingdom Hearts people and try to sue me, you'll get nada.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

**Chapter 3**

There was nothing left for them to do after picking up their IDs, since the next day they would be receiving their class schedules. But by the time that they had nearly gotten to the parking lot, Demyx had decided to try and bum a ride to the store, using the opportunity since Axel was already taking him out somewhere.

"Please? Pretty please? If you do, I'll…I'll…" Riku could see the cogs working in his little head. "I'll pay for the drinks tonight!" Demyx grinned smugly, knowing that that bribery would work.

"You can't pay for your own dinner, but you're going to pay for the booze?" Axel questioned, raising an eyebrow at Demyx's logic. "Not that I'll complain about it, but still…When you decide to not make sense, you go for it, don't you?" He shook his head, taking the lead since he only knew where he had parked. He was pretty sure that Riku didn't have a car, and he knew that Demyx was still looking for one, hence his begging for a ride. That left only his baby to get them where they needed to go.

"Hey! I make perfect sense," Demyx defended, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting.

" Yeah, in your head." Riku joined in the teasing, poking Demyx lightly in the arm as he fell in beside the brunet.

" Et tu, Riku? That should be against the rules, making fun of someone you've only just met. Besides, it's not like you guys are going to drink the whole stock of wherever we go! …Right?" He peeked sheepishly at Riku, and the taller man had the sneaking suspicion that Demyx was trying to give him a puppy-eyed look.

"I think that can easily be managed," Sneered a certain redhead, making Demyx splutter and whine (something about Axel being mean and cruel). "Ah, I'm just messing with you, Dem. You know I'd give you a ride anyway, but now that you've offered to pay for drinks, you can't weasel your way out of the bill." Axel shot him an evil look over his shoulder as he pulled his keys from his pocket, pushing some button on pad connected to what Riku assumed was his car key.

Axel was moving towards a four door GMC, and one silver eyebrow rose as Riku watched him. "This is my baby! Yes she is, yes she is!" Demyx sniggered as Axel attached himself to the vehicle, rubbing his cheek against it as he spoke. It was a metallic gray color, with orange and red flames licking from the rear up to the first set of doors. He liked putting a twist on things that were already popular.

"Axel, could you be any more obvious?" Riku jibed, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips when Axel spun around, glaring.

"Whadda'ya mean, obvious?" Axel ground out, a deadly gleam in emerald eyes.

"Axel, your truck is almost as flaming as you are," Riku crossed his arms over his chest, tossing his head back in a quick motion to dislodge a few strands of hair from his eyes.

"Oi! I'll have you know I'm bi, thank you! No gender is safe from me," he threw his arms out, cackling like a mad scientist. And just as suddenly as his mood had changed to that, he was back to glaring at Riku, pointing at him with a warning look on his face. "We don't insult the truck, got it? Or you'll be walking wherever the hell you want to go. For the rest of the year. Maybe longer. Now get in."

"Axel, it's a truck! Sheesh, don't be so touchy," groaned, climbing into the backseat before Riku could even question who was going to sit where.

Riku decided that it would just be faster to get in and let Axel think that his big beast wasn't spelling things out about him. 'Bi my ass,' he thought, snorting inwardly. As fun as it was to tease Axel, he kind of liked the prospect of having rides to places instead of having to walk or get a taxi, or track down another friend with a car.

"So, what store was it ya wanted to go to, Dem?" Axel asked, turning the key in the ignition and grinning when the engine growled into life. Movement caught his attention, and he caught sight of a hand in time to smack it away before the shorty in the back could change his station. "Hey, none of that! I'm driving, it's my truck, I pick the stations." He stuck his tongue out, making eye contact with Demyx via the review mirror.

"I was just going to see what's on…" The brunet rubbed his abused hand.

"Yeah, and I know the weird stations you like to listen to, so I just thought it would be nice to warn ya not to go for it before you lose your hand." Not that radio stations seemed to matter when Axel grabbed a CD from the middle console and stuck it in the player. Riku was able to see that it was a burnt disk before the machine swallowed it up, and the islander briefly wondered if he should be afraid. Although, he realized, he was going to have to live with the guy, so hopefully his taste in music wouldn't be too bad. To Riku's surprise, the first song was actually a rock song from their past, one that he'd actually liked.

"And I need to go to the store on AVALANCHE. That big one that sells just about everything. I'm picking stuff up for the room…Xiggles even game me a list when he heard I was going to be begging you for a ride." Demyx pulled a battered and folded piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it up into Riku's lap as if it would bite him if he held it for too long.

"Aw, c'mon, Dem. Give the One-Eyed-Wonder a chance!" Though Axel was chuckling, he was still trying to defend this poor "Xigbar". "He's really not that bad. What did he do to scare you?" They had by now pulled out of the student parking lot, going the back way, or so Riku assumed, since he didn't recognize a thing.

"I dunno…He was kinda eyeing me. And the fact that he's only a year above us, but he's done something dangerous or stupid enough to lose his eye and get that big ol' scar on his cheek." The smaller male fidgeted in his seat.

"Demyx! I never realized that you were so fickle. Never struck me as the kind of person to judge by looks, anyway…" Axel grinned widely, hiding it by turning his head to an exaggerated angle as he checked to be sure that the coast was clear before leaving the stop sign that had slowed their momentum.

"Wha-? No! No, that's not the reason he scares me!" The brunet stuttered in indignation.

"I don't know, it kind of sounds like it…" Riku smirked.

"R-Riku!" There was a definite whine to the keening note. "That's not it at all! It's because he's doing crazy stuff that makes that happen…Maybe…You know?" He almost looked like he was about to beg for them to stop picking on him.

Well, anyway, let's let Demyx wallow in his shallow self," he ignored the glare that spelled out his death for him in gory details in the review mirror, "and see if there's anything we want for our room."

"I can think of a few things. Some ear plugs, in case you snore would be nice," apparently Riku wasn't done teasing; he had just had to find a new target.

"Oi! I do NOT snore! Not even when I'm drop-dead drunk. Right, Dem?"

"I'm sorry. I only speak Shallow, not Asshole," came Demyx's terse reply as he crossed his arms and sulked.

"Aw, Dem! I was only playin'!" By the time that little whine-fight played out, they were considering spots in the parking lot of a store that looked more like a warehouse. Riku had finally snapped them both into silence after they had gone sprinting past the threshold of his patience with their bickering.

There was silence as they found a parking spot, and as they got out of the car, but that was when Axel spoke up again, this time in warning. "Slammed doors mean you get ditched here and starve!" Demyx was careful to not shut the door too hard. He'd tested Axel on that threat once, and he had been ditched at the store, and he'd been late to class as a result.

Riku, however, gave him an odd look. "Axel. It's a truck." Yet he didn't slam the door, though he was tempted.

"Yeah, and it's getting you from Point A to Point B since you don't have a car, and it's getting us to dinner tonight, so show some respect." Axel was just one of those guys who were only a little obsessed over their trucks. "Anyway," he went on, pushing the button for the automatic door lock until the vehicle honked shortly at him to signal it's compliance, "you gonna stop being a dick and answer my question seriously, Riku?" He was referring to the question of them needing anything here.

"You 'gonna' stop being stupid and cursing around small children?" They were getting a few glares from women walking briskly by, tugging on their children's hands to make them pass the three college students faster. Riku smacked the back of Axels head. "Idiot."

The redhead grinned, though the action did hold a little shame as he rubbed where he'd been hit. "Ah, it's not like the kids won't hear it as soon as they get to Junior High anyway…"

Riku just shook his head, and Demyx glared at him. "Those aren't good habits! I'm telling your dad!"

"Dem, my dad _taught_ me how to cuss. Just be glad I didn't pick up any of his other speech patterns," there was almost a groan in Axel's voice as they passed through the automatic sliding doors and into the store. Demyx immediately started towards the side that looked like grocery section.

Upon catching the confused look on Riku's face, the brunette leaned over, filling Riku in. "His dads got this weird habit of saying 'yo' at the end of almost every sentence." He laughed, "it usually annoys Axel whenever he comes to visit and he starts talking like that to all Axy's friends."

"'Yo'?" Riku grinned over at Axel, who made a face.

"Yeah, doesn't sound that bad, but it's annoying," grumbled the redhead.

"He only says that because it's contagious. He'll walk around doing it for days after his dad leaves. You'll see when Reno gets here. He likes to visit Axy like…once a month or so." Demyx trailed off, starting to look at the items on his list.

The rest of the store trip went relatively well, all things considered. Like the fact that Riku was in the presence of two of the strangest beings he'd ever met, Sora and Selphie included. Riku did end up getting beat over the head with a purse by some older lady who'd been standing too close when he had decided to list all of the reasons why the girl down the aisle was hot, the size of her breasts being the main reason and the one he put the most detail into. When they had gotten their supplies for the room, Riku and Axel only picking up small things like paper, pens, and snacks, and Demyx getting whatever Xigbar had asked for plus whatever he saw that interested him or that he thought was "pretty", they headed back out to Axel's truck, shoving everything in the backseat with Demyx.

"Alright! It's getting dark, so now I won't feel bad about wanting to go eat. And let's not forget, Demyx has so graciously agreed to pay for drinks…" There was definite excitement in Axel's voice.

"Why do I suddenly fear for my bank account…?" The accompanying sigh could be heard over the drone of Axel's music.

"Shoulda feared for it the moment you offered, bud. So, Dem, what have you been doing over the summer break?"

"Mmm, just working on my music and stuff…Oh, oh, oh! Guess what! I finally got my demo finished, Axel!" the dirty blond was nearly dancing in the backseat, grinning broadly. "I'm taking it to the studio here next week. I might have my first album by the end of the year!"

"Finally! You've been pussy-footing around it for forever." Axel mocked, much to Demyx's chagrin. "Good luck, hope you do well. No, I take that back. You will do well, but I wish you luck anyway." That put the grin back on Demyx's face, and that made the redhead beam, too.

"Okay, Riku, your turn!" That caught Riku by surprise.

"Uh…I was just relaxing at home, really…" There wasn't much else to it than that.

"Riku's a beach boy, Dem, even though I'm darker than him. He was probably out playing volleyball in the sand with some island hotties," Axel smirked.

"Island? You live on an island, Riku? That's amazing! Which one?" The grinning brunette asked, sitting forward to get a better look at Riku's face while he spoke.

"One of the smaller ones in the Destiny Islands chain. Why, you know the area?" Riku doubted that he would. No one seemed to know Destiny Islands, but that was to be expected when it was so far away, even if this was one of the closer main lands.

"...Are those the islands with the star-shaped fruit?" The slighter of the trio looked a little confused, trying to piece things together.

Riku blinked, surprised. "Yeah, they are. How did you know?"

"My pops' a shop owner, and he likes to get stuff that people can't find in our town. And let's face it, you'd never find star-shaped fruit-"

"Paopu," Riku interjected.

"Fine, you'd never find Paopu fruit," he amended with a roll of his eyes, "in Olympia."

"Olympia? You don't look like an Olympian…" That was a shocker. 'This little sugar high twig is from there? I thought that was the whole train to bash-and-slash town…'

Demyx grinned shyly, rubbing the back of his head. "Yeah…I was never really into trying to show anyone up with how big I could get my muscles. I prefer to wow with my music than with how many tons I can lift."

"And, oh pale one, let us not forget that you don't look like you came from Destiny Islands, either, so don't bug Demy," Axel interjected, smirking.

"Hey, 'Demy' can fend for himself, Mr. Pyromaniac," Demyx snorted, crossing his arms and sitting back in his seat.

"Great, Axel. You're habit of handing out nicknames is passing on to him." Riku groaned.

"Hmmm…You're right. Demyx, I'm afraid that I'm being a bad influence on you…And yet, I find myself not caring. So, welcome to the dark side. We're the fun side, anyway."

"I think I'll be certifiable by the end of the year," the silver haired male sank lower in his seat, shaking his head.

"Yeah, yeah. Are you gonna bitch this bad when we get liquor in ya?" Axel snorted.

Riku smirked. "I can hold my liquor better than some people in this car."

"…That sounded like a challenge, Whitey," Axel grinned, giving Riku an assessing glance from the corner of his eye.

"Think I'm wrong?"

"Thinking's got nothing to do with it. I _know_ you're wrong. Name your terms." There was a devilish gleam to his bright green eyes.

"If you can get the drink down and keep it there without passing out you're still in the game. Or you could just give up and admit I'm better." He crossed his arms cheekily over his chest.

"And what do I get when I win?"

"I'll do your laundry for a month, clean your half of the room, and do ONE homework assignment of your choice." He waited for Demyx to look out the window before he leaned in close to Axel whispering, "And maybe we can pick up where we left off…"

Axel's neck almost snapped with how fast he turned to face Riku, eyes wide with surprise. Then they narrowed. He hated having sexy make-out sessions hinge on things like this. Or be held over his head like bribery. He growled at Riku, who smirked back, but relented. "Alright, fine. And if you win?"

"Same conditions apply. Except I get to throw in a mystery element if I win." That sent Axel's alarms off, but Riku spoke up before he could deny the last part. "Then again, if you're too afraid of anything I could throw at you, I suppose we could call it off and just call me the winner right now," he brushed imaginary dust from the bottom hem of his shirt, mentally snickering.

"Deal. I'll even let you pick the drinks, light weight. Shake on it," the redhead ground out, holding out one hand as he continued to drive on.

Riku shook, his grin getting wider and wider by the second. "Good luck. You'll need it."

"Oh, oh, we're here! ...Where is here?" Demyx only knew that they'd started pulling in somewhere, but he hadn't been paying attention to tell where. "Is this…Twilight Tavern? You serious?" There was evident excitement in his tone.

"No, we're going to the place _behind_ it. Yeah, I'm serious. Drove here, didn't I? We might as well start the year off in style! Besides this is the best place to drink in. Which reminds me, everyone got IDs statin' you're legal? Depending on who's working, they get kinda obsessive about ID checks."

"That's only if Xaldins working, though. Unless they've got a new OCD manager." Demyx said this as if it should have made all the difference to Riku.

Riku only held up his Island issued ID stating that he was twenty-one or over. "Age limits a go."

"And I just hit the big 2-1 three weeks ago! By the way, Axy, whatever happened to that birthday present you promised to give me before summer break?" The brunet's overenthusiastic proclamation turned into a pout and whined question. Demyx huffed, punishing Axel by giving Riku a bit of advice, "You wanna go for Bailey's. Axel can't stand it. Something about the smell getting to him or something like that."

"Demyx! Why the hell ya gotta go and tell him something like that?!"

"'Cause you welched on your present, you jerk!" Came the stubborn reply.

"Heh…Oh look, a perfect parking spot," Axel covered, conveniently having to turn away from Demyx to watch what he was doing.

Now parked, they exited the car and made their way to the door of the Demyx practically gushing the whole way, his own excitement distracting him from the present that a certain redhead owed him. "Axel, I love you forever for this."

"Demyx, what have I told you about these endless confessions of love? I'm just one man, I can't handle the kind of commitment you want," Axel shooed away the hug that was launched his way, shoving the smaller body through the door on his way.

"Are all your friends like this, Axel?" Demyx had taken off with the shove, using it as a driving force to propel himself through the two sets of heavy wooden doors and into the bar, so Riku felt it was safe to ask while they took their time catching up. He didn't have a problem with the rest of Axel's group being that way; if it really bothered him he would get his own group going. Besides, it was easier when people acted more like themselves.

"Nope. Demyx's one of a kind. Naminé's this really quiet little girl who's wicked with a pad of paper and a pencil. But she's a sweetie. Then there's Lexaeus. Built like a friggen' wall. And just by looking at him, you'd think he was as dumb as one, too. But he's got some of the best grades in the school. He's a little hard to read…The rest, well, you'll have to see for yourself, but obviously Dem's just in a class all his own." By then, they were just getting into earshot of the exuberant sophomore.

"Good evening, fellas," the waitress drawled, fixing her eyes on Riku immediantly. "Non-smoking or are you here for the bar?"

"We'll take a booth right next to the bar," Demyx threw in excitedly. That was his and Axel's favorite spot.

Nodding, the nameless woman led them to an empty clean booth after grabbing three menus, and passed them out as they all got situated.

"Isn't Zexion working here still?" Demyx asked the woman, propping his menu up in front of him.

"You bet. In fact, he's gonna be your waiter tonight. You want something already? I'll go grab him for you…" Before Demyx could squeak a reply, she was gone.

"Zexion? Another buddy of yours," Riku asked, casting a sidelong glance at Axel.

"Nothin' get's past you, Cabana Boy," Axel answered smoothly, scanning the brightly colored laminated paper before him.

"Again with the nicknames…? Anyway, care to explain?"

"Ex-roomy of Demyx's. They bunked together last year. Guess Zexy sprang for a single this year, though. Makes sense, he's got crazy work hours here, so he probably didn't want to deal with a roommate on top of that. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention," Demyx made pleading eyes at him to shut his mouth, "he's DemDem's current object of affection."

Riku arched an eyebrow, grinning at the man opposite him who tried to hide behind the menu. He didn't duck fast enough, though, and Riku saw the red tint to his cheeks.

"Speaking of Sexy Zexy, here he comes, Dem!" Axel crowed with glee.

Making another odd noise, Demyx quickly did a hair check in the napkin dispenser before straightening, hoping the red was gone from his face.

"Axel. Demyx." The voice that came from above Riku was deep, yet soft. He looked up, not really knowing what to expect, but not expecting what he found. The sight that greeted him was surprising; he hadn't thought that such a dreary looking man would appeal to the hyper young boy who'd gone still in his seat. Riku's first thought was that he was staring at an emo. He almost couldn't resist the urge to look down at the guys' wrists just to check it out. He had a wave of hair that could only be described as a dark metallic purple that covered his right eye and half his face, the rest short and out of the way. His uncovered eye was only half open, making him look either agitated or extremely bored.

Demyx opened his mouth to say something in return, but after a few failed attempts, he closed his mouth, and just nodded.

Axel, on the other hand, wasn't shy at all. "Hey, buddy! Long time no see! Still getting dragged into late night shifts here?" He bustled on without waiting for a response. He wouldn't get one, the answer to his question was obvious, and he knew it. He just liked ruffling Zexions feathers. "Got me a new roomy this year! This is Riku. Came straight from a dingy little island to our busy town."

Zexion didn't seem fazed by Axel, at least not on the visible half of his face, but his blue eyes slowly transferred down to Riku. "You have my pity."

"So, you're Zexy, huh? We were just hearing all about you and Demyx-" A swift kick to his shin from an all too innocent looking Demyx shut him up quickly, and he glared over at the brunette.

Zexion could tell that it had been Axel telling the tales. No one else called him Zexy, mostly because they could all tell he hated it. Axel knew he didn't like it; the only difference between the redhead and the others was that he simply didn't care.

"Anything I can get you to start with?" Damn his job.

"Anything with Vodka in it," chirped Axel.

"He means he wants a Bailey's." Riku smirked. "Challenge starts now, Axel."

"Aw, you're kidding me! I don't even get anything decent before you force that shit on me?" He was glaring death at Riku.

"Well, unless you want me to win so bad you'd give me a handicap like that, then no, I'm not kidding," that smug smirk only widened.

There was much muttering, and Zexion had to raise an eyebrow at them before shrugging and writing down the order. His attention then turned to his ex-roommate, pen poised over the small pad of paper while he waited.

"Oh, uh…Margarita. Sugar, not salt, please." His eyes were fixed on the table, meekly drawing little patterns on the smooth surface to distract himself.

"Right. I'll go give the order to Xaldin and be back in a minute," he spun on his heel, leaving them all in silence.

That was, until, "So that's the guy that caught our rambunctious little Demyx's attention? Seems a little…"

"Hot?"

"Emo?"

"Adorably silent?"

"Prissy?"

"Axel! I swear to-"

"I was going to say _reserved_, but I guess those will all work, too," Riky interjected, trying to end the glare-off the other two had entered in, though Axel was grinning through the whole thing. He was obviously enjoying tormenting Dem.

"Hate to break up the party, boys, but I need ID cards," growled yet another deep voice behind Riku. They all whipped around to face the deep unknown visitor, Axel and Demyx breaking out in groans while Riku was left to once again assess the stranger.

Rugged would have been the first word to come to mind. Tall, pale skinned, black haired, and blue eyed would have been the next few. That black hair looked to be in small dreads- braids maybe?- and they were all pulled back into a ponytail on the top of his head, presumably to keep them out of his way. But it was the sideburns that had Riku turning back around quickly so he could hide his laughter. The guy had the strangest sideburns he'd ever seen! They came out to his cheeks ending almost parallel to the pupil of his eye on each side. Axel gave him a knowing look as he dug in his pocket for his wallet.

"C'mon, Xaldin! You know that I'm legal! Turned twenty-one last year with you right there helping me get the hang over of my life!" The redhead produced the card regardless, handing it over for the older man to inspect.

Demyx quickly followed suit, grinning broadly. "Guess what, Xaldy! I turned twenty-one a few weeks ago! Now I can see you and Zexion when you guys are working without getting in trouble!"

In his defense, the guy did smile at Demyx in a seemingly friendly way as he passed the IDs back out. "Alright, newcomer, you too," he looked down at Riku expectantly, hand outstretched.

"Newcomer?" Riku gave it to him with little fuss.

"Yeah, I know the whole group. In my last year and a half at the school myself, so I'd know you if you weren't new." Xaldin inspected the given card. "Riku Staley, huh? Pleasure, Riku. Name's Xaldin. Don't get in the bad habit Demyx has of shortening it, either. Destiny Island ID, huh? Haven't seen one of these in a while. Alright, you guys are good. I knew when Zexion placed an order in for a drink with sugar that you were here, Dem, and I had to check you out."

"You know, he already has his eye on someone else, so you should really direct your attentions elsewhere, Xaldin," Axel grinned, glad that Riku was between him and the veritable gorilla, because he might have gotten hit.

"Axel, be careful, or I'll add a few extra ingredients to anything you order." With that, the man was gone, and not long after Zexion came back with their drinks. He placed the margarita down in front of Demyx, who immediately took a fairly large sip. This earned a look from Zexion that the drinking brunette didn't pick up as his attention was monopolized by the frozen drink. The purple haired male then set a glass of Bailey's down in front of Riku, who grinned, being a particular fan of this type of alcohol. The fact that Axel hated it only heightened his enjoyment of it in this instance. But there were still two glasses on his tray, and Axel looked up at him in confusion, a look that soon turned into teary-eyed joy when Zexion set down the Bailey's, soon followed by some fruity flavored vodka mix or another.

"Alright, but it's your ass cleaning my room," Riku sighed, eyeing Axel and shooting down his joy.

"Party pooper. If I gotta do a drinking competition with this shit, I want something good before I have to do it!" He growled.

"Actually, you guys are drinking the last in stock, Xaldin wanted me to tell you. So there won't be any drinking games with it. Anyway, let me get the food order, then you can decide what you want instead."

"Can you give us another minute? I don't know about either of these bums, but I haven't decided what I want yet." Axel murmured, looking back down at the menu that had been forgotten long ago.

Nodding, Zexion left them to make up their minds, grinning just slightly. Axel owed him. Axel owed him big. It had been Zexions second or third night working at the bar when Axel had come in, sporting a fair sized crowd that informed the entire clientele that the spunky redhead had turned twenty one that day. Xigbar had decided that his process of 'getting to know' Axel would be to see how much liquor Axel could hold. And, of course, he'd chosen Bailey's. Axel had complained a little at the smell of it, which Demyx had described as getting a sharpie shoved up your nose and having it kicked a few times, but he'd gone on with it. It wasn't until he was so drunk that he got sick while still at the bar that he decided he hated the stuff. And, true enough, the next time someone had tried to be nice and buy him a drink one night, they made the mistake of buying _that_ for him. He'd gagged, shoving the drink back at Zexion with enough force to tip the glass over and send the fluid across the counter. Knowing all this, Zexion had found it in his best interest to spare Axel, and his work environment, from having to repeat either of those experiences.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

So there we have it! It's only about seven pages longer than normal, but I thought this would be a good cut off spot. So now we've met Zexion! The awkwardness between Zexy and Demyx only gets better from here. Again, I apologize for taking so long. My muses are just getting back to me with this fic, so hopefully it won't take nearly this long for the next chapter, eh? I've already started it, so mayhaps…Anyway, on to review replies!

**catchmelon**- Oh, I agree that the kiss was all to brief. Fans self But it was smexy! Thanks for not agreeing with my mean beta on the "filler" opinion of the chapter. I love some of the exchanges in this chapter. Your thoughts?

**Casmut**- Isn't he though?! Teasing Axel like that…Riku's just a bastard! Poor Dem…Even though he's gay too, I think they might have damages his retinas…Fruity roommate?! le gasp How could you say such a thing of dear Xiggles?! N'aww, thanks, Casmut! Maybe more will come as the story goes on. People do like to read stories with more chapters up, after all…w We'll just wait and hope, yeah?

**Rosalyn Angel**- I will continue to continue as I continue on! As long as you leave me comments to fuel the fire. Axel's not going to roll over and take it! He'll get his payback. Don't you worry. Snicker And looky, we met two new characters again! With mention to two or three more:'D We win?

Your ever-loving Juukai


	4. Chapter 4: Drunk Songsters

Juukai says: Well, I'm glad that you guys didn't shoot me in the face for taking so long to get that last chapter up!! …And this one. -; Believe me, I appreciate the fact that I am still whole and unharmed. Spring Break was alright. As was Easter (stayed in the dorm room on my own for a few days). Yeah, sorry, con worries have been keeping me from writing for a while. But I never forget you guys!

Disclaimer: Really. Do I write like I work for Squeenix or Disney? Nope, so don't sue me. I'll send my killer fishes after you. Rawr. Although, I do not own either of the songs in this chapter. You'll see!

'Thoughts.'

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

**Chapter 4**

With Zexion gone, they were able to sit and concentrate on their menus. For all of one whole minute.

"Riku, don't say anything to Zex, please? Pretty please?" Sea hued eyes begged for him to comply, watering up to add an effect and try to gain pity.

"But why, when you turn so many nice colors?" The silver haired youth never looked up from the laminated pages, contemplating the food choices.

"Because I'll give you a permanent, grade A Demyx foot print in your shin?" Only Demyx could say that while still sounding like a child begging 

for the newest and coolest toy in the store. And when Riku glanced up, he could see that Demyx indeed looked the begging child part with big, watery eyes and a pouty bottom lip.

But the thought of getting more of those kicks made him wince slightly and he just looked back down at his menu without answering. Demyx just grinned. It was obvious that he'd won. "What are you guys getting?" 'Time for a subject that doesn't have to do with the mutilation of my legs,' Riku decided.

"Mmmm…I don't know yet. I think I'm going to have to do the coin test." Demyx began to dig in his pocket, pulling a single Munney piece out after much searching.

"Coin test," there was doubt in Riku's question.

"Yeah. Here, I'll show you." Demyx put his menu down flat and closed his eyes. Moving his hand over the menu in many different directions for a minute, he finally flipped the coin, letting it fall unaided on the menu. When he heard the tell-tale clunk of the gold money piece, he cracked his eyes open and searched out what had been chosen by the guru Munney. "Aww. I hate it when this happens. It landed on two. Veggie Burger or Mediterranean Gumbo?"

"...Um…Interesting way of deciding what you want to eat." He looked down at his own menu, letting his stomach tell him what he wanted. And there it was! "They actually have Grilled Chicken Alfredo in a place like this?"

"Place like this?" Echoed the redhead scornfully. "This is place is amazing!" Axel seemed to have perked up a bit since it was announced that there would be no drinking competition with Baileys that night. "I know what I'm getting. The Burn-Your-Mouth-Off BBQ Chicken Wings!"

Riku gave his booth-mate a look, to which Axel only raised an eyebrow. "Am I going to regret rooming with you after tonight? If you get sick or have gas, I'm locking you out of the room."

"You don't know me well enough to make that decision yet, cabana boy. Just wait until I drink you into the ground," there was a smug tone in the redheads voice that made Riku bristle.

"I hate to interrupt the fight that Axy's big mouth is about to start," Demyx interjected as he licked off a little of the sugar around the rim of his glass and took a drink of his margarita, "but did anyone think about the fact that we're all drinking and we don't have a designated driver?" The look that crossed Axel's face said it all. It was mixture of surprise and the famous "oh shit" expression.

"Have you guys decided yet?" With that, Riku decided that Zexion was part ninja, since he kept sneaking up on the group when they were otherwise distracted.

"Zexion! My skulker in ebony apron," Axel practically latched on to him immediately. He might have actually grabbed hold of him if Riku hadn't been in the way. Zexion was afraid.

"What do you want, Axel?" His tone was clipped. He could tell it was going to call for something beyond his duties as a waiter.

"I know you catch the bus to and from campus to get to work, right? Wanna secure your ride home?" Axel wiggled his little half-eyebrows at the lilac haired server.

"What's the catch?" Zexions thin arms crossed over his chest, and his expression brooked no bullshit.

"Alright, we're all drinking, as you can plainly see. And we didn't get a designated driver, so…" There was an embarrassed chuckle, followed by a hand rubbing the back of his head through bright red spikes.

Zexion shook his head, and there was the distinct impression of one eyebrow twitching under the fringe of bangs covering half of his face. "Axel Marshall Flynn. Are you telling me that you planned to come here to drink, all three of you, and you didn't think to get a designated driver?" A certain gleam of satisfaction entered his gray-blue eyes as Axel flinched at the use of his full name. Demyx tried to hide a snicker in a cough, and failed miserably, only succeeding in drawing Zexion's attention to him. "And you, Demyx Aiden O'Donohue, are no better. You _let_ him come without getting one." Riku only watched in amusement as Zexion continued to cow both males, only ending when both of their heads hung and they were looking rightly sheepish.

Since both of them now looked thoroughly ashamed, Zexion took a long breath, closing his eyes and looking like he wanted to do nothing more than rub his temples and walk away. Riku wondered if he, too, would look the same way after he knew the other two for as long as Zexion had. Flipping his bangs, though they landed back in the same position, the blue eyed youth gave Axel another scathing look, but nodded once. "Alright. I'll be your designated. But next time at least pretend that you have a brain and think about these things ahead of time." And out came the notepad, giving an air that the conversation was, indeed, over. "Now, are you ready to order?"

"Yeah, Mom, we're ready," Axel answered, fishing in his pocket and drawing out a jingling mass of keys and chains. Some were smart-ass plastic squares with phrases like "kiss me, I'm hot" printed in varying red bold or italicized texts, which was the only one Riku could actually read when the keys were passed right in front of his face to Zexion.

"Very humble, Axel." Riku shook his head, rolling his eyes as his roomy gave him an arrogant smile.

"You know it! I want the Fire Alarm Chicken Wings." Green eyes watched as Zexion scribbled it down.

"Fries or onion rings?" He didn't look up.

"Man, you give me all the hard choices, Zexy." Axel sat pondering for a moment, but decided that his stomach would react better to fries considering the alcohol he'd be having on top of the spices. "Fries…And add an extra side order of 'em, too. I'm starving. Wait, is this bill separate from the drinks? 'Cause Dem's picking up the drinks, and I've got the food."

Zexion gave him a look. "I think I can manage putting them on two different tabs." Cold eyes turned to Riku. "And you?"

"I want the Grilled Chicken Alfredo." He grabbed Axel's menu, put his own on top, and them into Zexions outstretched hand.

"Demyx?" The look the waiter gave him was not as cold as the one that he'd given the other two, Riku was sure of it. There was a chance for things to work between them if they all played their cards right…

"Uh…I w-want th-the Mediterranean G-Gumbo with extra sh-shrimp, please." As he handed his menu over, he slid further down his side of the booth and the look on his face made it obvious that he was mentally kicking himself. Zexion, in his defense, didn't so much as raise an eyebrow. He merely wrote down the last order, collected the menu, and walked off.

"St-st-stutter e-e-enough, D-Demyx?" Axel mocked, poking the boys arm.

"Shut up, Axel," grumbled Demyx, folding his arms on the table and laying his head on his arms, "or I'll tell Riku every embarrassing story about you I know. And I have a lot of new ammunition since your dad visited right before the end of last semester."

The redheads mouth opened as if he was about to say something, but when nothing came out, he just snapped it shut, crossing his arms over his 

chest. Riku elbowed him in the side, grinning at his new friends misfortune.

They spent a few minutes in silence. Demyx was looking a little uncomfortable until a song he knew came over the speakers, and he settled into tapping his fingers and singing the lyrics softly under his breath. Their food arrived in bits, Axel's side of fries coming first, which he promptly tore into, despite the fact that the others didn't have anything to eat yet.

"Shnikies, Axel," Demyx pouted, "can't even wait for us, huh? I'm starving, too…"

"Want another, Demyx?" Zexion was balancing the tray expertly, looking down his nose at Demyx's empty glass with a few sticky remains of the sugar around the rim.

"Uh…Yeah. Thanks, Zex," Demyx continuously looked down at the table, ignoring the fact that he was drinking with no food in his belly.

"Surprise us with anything vodka-esque for the drinking competition, okay?" Axel added with a fry hanging precariously from the corner of his mouth. Zexion nodded, leaving the two of them alone to watch Axel gorge.

"Here, Dem. You're gonna need something in that belly when that margarita hits," when Demyx finally looked up, there were two fries waving in front of his face. He opened his mouth, promptly biting down on the fries just a hairsbreadth away from Axel's fingers. "Oi! Don't bite the hand that feeds, dude!"

"Thorry," Demyx smiled, chewing greedily as he snagged more from Axel's plate.

"Yeah, yeah, just don't eat all my food before your stinky choice gets here." He added more ketchup to his plate, dipping the potato sticks in the pool before shoving them in his own mouth.

"Well, I'm glad to see that all your manners aren't nonexistent, Ax," Riku muttered, leaning his chin on his hand.

"My manners are not nonexistent." Axel pointed a fry at him, raising an eyebrow. "And don't call me Ax. Demyx doing it is one thing. You haven't seen me in the morning after an extreme drinking binge without coffee enough times to earn that yet."

"Uh huh. Like I'm not going to in the future considering I'm your roommate," the silveret rolled his eyes, tracking Zexion as he came out of the kitchen bearing another tray. This time it was loaded with one plate, a giant bowl, and a basket. As he passed the bar, he picked up Demyx's waiting new drink, holding it in his free hand as he made for the booth. Each dinner was set down before the salivating owners after the new glass was placed in front of the usually exuberant, but now broody brunet. He collected the empty glass, made sure that nobody needed anything more of him for the time being, and disappeared to presumably do something behind the counter or tend to the other tables in his section.

Riku looked over at Axel's meal, and then his own. He was glad that he had pasta, because he had found it to be true that something with plenty of carbs stopped him from getting sick after the drinking was done. Maybe Axel's stomach was different. Or maybe he was just stupid and put too much merit on other people not getting sick when they went to clubs and drank with little more in their bellies than what they had in the movies.

Demyx was already digging into his gumbo, which had come in a weird bread-bowl thing, heartily, grinning widely. His earlier mortification over stuttering in front of Zexion must have been lost. Between bites and ripping pieces of the bread bowl off to shove in his mouth, his fingers tapped to the beats of the gentle rock music that the karaoke machine in the corner was currently belching out on the table, the person who was singing it's horrible voice being ignored in favor for the actual song.

"Demyx," Riku started after his first bite, only to be cut off.

"No need to be so formal, Riku! I know that it can be a mouthful sometimes, no dinner time pun intended. Just call me Dem, or DemDem, like most people do. Or stupid. Idiot, moron, ass, ignoramus- it was hard to stretch my mouth around that one the first time," Demyx listed happily, taking another giant bite of his food and managing to look like a happy child.

"You know," Axel started, swallowing once Riku groaned a reminder not to talk with food in his mouth, "I think I gave you most of those, Dem. Although it sounds like Zexion gave you that last one. Does anyone in our group but him even know what an ignoramus is?" He chuckled into his current chicken wing.

"Alright, fine. Dem, you sing, don't you? Or is it just an acoustic album that you're doing? Or did you get a singer to record with you?" Instead of looking up at the boy again, he was concentrating on twirling a good sized bite of pasta around his fork, sticking a piece of chicken on the end to keep the slippery noodles from falling off.

Demyx looked thoughtful for a moment, but chewed his way through his bite before trying to answer, refusing to show off his food and get reprimanded like Axel had just been. "I sing a little. I usually get Axel to do it for me, though…Or Namine, if I need a girl's voice."

Riku almost choked on his chicken. "What?! Axel can sing?"

Said redhead looked rather insulted. "I'll have you know there's more to me than meets the eye!" He accentuated this with a wave of a fry.

"Uh-huh. I'm not sure if that comment soothes me like you thought it would, flamer," the silveret murmured just before taking another bite, staring at Demyx through Axel's glare.

"Yeah, Riku. You should hear him! He's really good! And I bet you'd never even think that he can draw, would you? He's really good at that, too, even though Namine's got him beat by miles."

"You can't compare her style and mine! I use charcoal! That's like comparing Atlantians to Pride Landers." He proceeded to reach forward and bap Demyx on the head, though the motion had no heart in it. "Stupid."

"See? Told ya it was one of my names…" The sitarist rubbed his head as if he'd been extremely injured. "But yeah, basically, either I'll sing, he'll sing, or both. Why?"

Riku grinned evilly. "I was just thinking that we should give that karaoke a workout, or at least give everyone's ears a break here…"

Demyx and Axel just stared at him for a moment. "You…want us to sing drunk, don't you?" Axel finally asked, shoveling another handful of fries in his mouth after dutifully drenching them in ketchup.

"Floor-raping drunk is the only way to sing karaoke, so yes." He stared levelly back at the other two.

"Dude, how did you say that with a straight face," Demyx asked, grinning, flashing an enthusiastic thumbs up while Axel groaned.

"I hate singing when I'm plastered! You guys always laugh at me in the morning for singing girly songs," he pointed an accusing finger at Dem, glaring.

"Don't pick girly songs and we won't make fun of you," Riku chimed in, earning himself his own death glare from the redhead again.

"Aw, c'mon, Axel! What if I pick the songs and sing with you until we're all too drunk to care?" Demyx gave him his best begging puppy look.

"Dem, I made you swear over the toilet-grave of the goldfish Sparkles to never use that face again, remember?" Demyx added the effect of getting all teary eyed. "…Alright, alright! Fine. But if I hear a word from either of you about song choice tomorrow, I swear there will be death. Lots 

and lots of death. The kind that will have Uncle Vinny working overtime for three years to clean up." He pointed at the both of them in turn, making sure that they both at least knew that he might mean business. The other two made noises with various degrees of enthusiastic victory.

The rest of their meal passed with short lines of playful banter, but little more. They were all more interested in actually getting their food down. Axel was the first to finish, and he burped the fact out once his last bite was down. He watched the other two continue eating, leaning back in the booth seat with a hand on his stomach contentedly. Riku was the second to finish, and he joined Axel in picking on Demyx as they waited for the dirty blonde to finish. He whined at them, which only made it take longer for him to chew his last few bites. He didn't finish it all, not that he had really expected he would, he admitted, it was just too much food what with the giant bowl of bread and all.

"Alright, let's get these gross drinks out of the way and start with the real competition!" Axel grabbed the glass of Bailey's that had been taunting him the whole time he'd eaten, holding it up high. "After this, the real liquor!"

Riku groaned inwardly, holding his own drink up to match Axels. Demyx proceeded with a countdown, and they smirked at each other before downing their glasses.

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Riku tossed back another of the cherry vodkas that Zexion had brought them in accordance to Axel's order earlier. There were shot glasses littering their table, along with about six of Demyx's glasses, one being half full at the moment. Said twenty year old wasn't nursing the drink, though, neither was he preparing to throw it back. No, he was on stage with Axel, both of them clinging to each other like long-lost brothers, both comically drunk. Axel hadn't cared about leaving Riku alone for the length of the song; he'd already taken two shots to make up for the lost time. The one 

that Riku had just downed made them even now. He'd lost count at around eleven, and since then, he hadn't bothered to try and take count again. And of course, counting glasses and then dividing the sum by two would have been just far too much work at this point.

The two inebriated comrades were currently in the chorus of their song.

_"She's so lucky; she's a star. But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking: If there's nothing missing in my life, then why do these tears come at night?"_

Yep, that was them, those two manly men, up there singing some Brittany Arrows song that had been popular years ago. Demyx's voice was almost high enough to pull it off, but you could tell that he was going just a little too high, because every other note his voice would start to crack or it would turn into a sigh rather than a genuine note. Axel wasn't even trying to sing high. He wasn't particularly deep voiced, but it did not do him justice to be singing female parts. Not that his drunken state made that better, since he was giggling and hiccupping through most of the lines but the chorus's. Only a few people in the crowd that had formed around them seemed to care. They were either too amused or too drunk to think they were terrible and should get off the stage. True, the duo were receiving a couple glares, but it's not like they could have possibly seen them from the stage through the purple, red, and yellow lights that shone down on them.

Their song ended, and Demyx gripped his mic, falling down on his knees as he exaggerated the final note, _"why do these tears come at night?"_ Which only made Riku want to both chuckle and groan. They stumbled down the steps, making their way at an easy pace back over to the booth. Some people seated at the bar clapped for them, one, who was farther gone than Riku thought they'd get that night lifted his head up to whistle. Riku, obviously, didn't know him, but he knew one of the other two people he was there with. There was another blonde, and there almost seemed to be a 

family resemblance between the two, who tried to shush the first, but was just as loud, his cheeks pink with his alcohol intake, but that wasn't the company he recognized. It was the man with black hair and red eyes that looked like he wanted to bolt from the room that he knew. It was their R.A., Vincent.

"Shuddap, Luxord," Axel laughed, pointing at the one who had whistled. " 'r I'll snore all through class."

Riku gave him an odd look, but neither he nor the dirty blonde attached to his side seemed inclined to enlighten him on who that was.

"Where's Zexion," Demyx whined, plopping down on his side of the booth and scooting into the middle, grabbing onto his drink immediately and bringing it to his mouth so that he could lick off the remaining sugar lining the rim. Riku had been quick to figure out another reason why Axel had wanted Zexion to drive them when obviously they knew Xaldin, and he wasn't going to be drinking on the job, or so he hoped; Demyx was a clingy drunk. Affectionate and cute, but clingy none-the-less. Axel must have been thinking ahead getting Zexion to drive them, that way he could leave the brunette to paw over Zexion instead of one of them. And it might get them over their evident awkwardness.

"Workin', Dem," came the slurred reply of the silver haired one, hooking a thumb lazily towards the bar. "He'll probably be back soon to give us the next round. We're not done yet!"

A thud indicated that Axel's head had come down on the table. Riku checked to see that he was still awake, thinking maybe he'd won already and they could just go back to their hectic room. But Axel was looking up at him, eyes looking a little glazed, but otherwise alert. "Didn't think you'd get this far, Ri," was all he said, as if that explained his actions.

"I told you not to call me that." Riku's brow furrowed, and he pouted. He knew he must be drunk if he was actually pouting, but he just 

couldn't seem to stop himself. "And this is what you get for underestimating me, you flamer."

Axel laughed, clapping Riku on the back with more force than intended. "Bi, remember?" Was all he chirped before he started to turn all the empty shot glasses upside down. "Only time I'm flaming is when I've got my lighter out burning shit."

"That must be a stinky habit, Axy," giggled Demyx, lifting his margarita glass to safety as Axel rolled a glass at it with enough power to have spilled it all over his lap.

"Bastard," growled the redhead, promptly ignoring Demyx afterwards and turning to Riku. "Alright, you preened out platinum beach boy, 's yer turn to sing. We already told 'em what song to play for you, just go!"Axel was up again, pulling Riku up out of the booth and then pushing him towards the stage.

"Don't I get a say 'n this?" Riku knew it was pointless to ask, but he had to try.

"Nuh-uh! Go on, Ri," Demyx hiccupped again as he waved him off, holding the back of his seat so he could watch Riku approach the mini stage.

"You think he'll kill us when he's done," Axel asked, watching Riku's retreating back.

"Prob'bly. But we deserve it." Poor Riku didn't know what he was up for.

The tune for the song was familiar, another one of those annoying pop songs that had been popular when he was younger, the same as the song Dem and Axel had done earlier, only this was a long forgotten boy band number. As he opened his mouth to sing the words, glaring death into the audience he wouldn't see, the words flashed across a small screen 

to his right. They were not the words that he'd been preparing to sing, either. He was sure his voice doubtlessly sounded pretty confused when the first lyrics came out of his mouth.

"_We dance like sissys  
We sing like wussys  
But we must tell you  
We swear we're not gay."_

If looks could kill, everyone in the place would be dead. Axel and Demyx howled with laughter, and the two were pretty sure that they heard a snort or ten from the blonde with Luxord as he tried not to laugh. Luxord himself had passed out on the bar. Even Vincent tried to hide his smile behind his hand.

"And you wanted him to sing this song because…?" Demyx was looking back at Axel.

"He's so in denial, he might as well sing it," was the snickered reply. Demyx rolled his eyes, but giggled again anyway. He turned back around, looking at Axel seriously for a moment. His moods tended to change faster than normal when he was drunk, and he had no problem asking awkward questions.

"So, you really like this guy Riku, huh?" It was said as a question, but even Axel could tell it was more of a statement.

He looked down at the pyramid he'd started to make out of the glasses. "Yeah. Easy to tell, huh? Seems like he might l'ke me, but I can't tell sometimes…"

"You only just met him a few hours ago. You sure?" He watched Axel's slow nod.

Zexion showed up then, giving Demyx a level stare as he deposited three drinks onto the table and grabbed a few of the empty glasses to try 

and keep Axel from breaking them. It was either for all the alcohol that he was trying to ingest or because he was the one making Axel's face fall like that. It was pretty widely known that Axel was usually a very happy drunk, pleasant and happy. Sure, if someone pushed him too far he would get angry and violent, but that happened whether or not he was drunk. But just as he was easily happy when he was drunk, he was easily depressed. Demyx had seen that for himself one time last year when Axel had showed up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, so drunk that the whole dorm hall could probably smell him, and almost looking ready to do something rash, just because he and Roxas had hit a very rocky point in their relationship. Axel had been completely in love with the younger blonde, who'd graduated early from High School and had gone to school with Namine previously.

"Whatever happened with Roxy? I haven't seen him on campus yet…" Demyx knew that was the wrong thing to say when he saw Axel wince.

Zexion was just leaving, and he gave Demyx another meaningful look, as if telling him to stop that subject before it started. He ignored it, wanting to know why his friend, who had lost his heart to another boy completely, was now making out with his new roommate that he'd known for only minutes before jumping him.

"Yeah, about Roxas…He uh…Kinda," Axel's dulled green eyes didn't leave the tabletop, "hates me now."

"Hates you? Since when?!" Demyx realized too late he'd been too loud, and he looked around to see other people glancing at their table.

"Can we talk about this later, Dem?" Axel looked like he was about to break. It was then that he made an executive decision and stood, plastering a fake smile onto his face, acting a lot more intoxicated than he was. "C'mon, let's go help Riku up there! What's the point of a Backroad Boy's song if you're singing it alone?"

Demyx didn't get to say anything before he was being dragged away, and thrown up next to Riku. Axel slung his long arms around the shoulders of both his friends, grinning like an idiot as he joined Riku in the third to last verse, making Demyx go along.

_"Our biggest fans are twelve year old girls_

_Who think we're cute as can be._

_But as they grow older, they'll find out_

_We're hiding our latency!_

_One thing is for sure,_

_We get manicures._

_We do, we do, we do_

_Wash our clothes_

_On the delicate cycles_

_Want to do_

_A session with George Michaels._

_But today_

_We think we better say_

_We swear we're not gay."_

Axel and Demyx were cracking up, and so it was Riku who stepped up to do the final note. _"I swear we're not gay."_ All three boys laughed their way off the stage, Riku obviously having forgotten his intent to murder 

them both violently by that point because the situation was just too funny. They were too busy to notice or care if anyone cheered for them, or if they were getting booed. They didn't even care if some members of the crowd were calling them names. They were just were just enjoying the moment.

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Don't you just love that Brittany Arrows and the Backroad Boys? Them's my favorites to listen to! XD Sorry, I couldn't help myself, really. You know that you liked it, anyway. Deep down inside, you did. Riku singing "I swear we're not gay"? C'mon, you loved it. (By the way, it's a real song. Go look it up, it's hilarious. It's a spoof, I know, but the place I got it from credited it to the Backstreet Boys, so I just left it at that.) **I WANT TO THANK EVERYONE WHO HAS FAVORITED/ ALERTED THIS STORY!! YOU PEOPLE SERIOUSLY MAKE THIS WHOLE WRITING EXPERIENCE BETTER!** Seriously, I love you guys. Especially my reviewers! >3 Come on, now, don't be afraid to leave me a review! It's just that little itty bitty button on the left bottom corner. It won't bite! I don't even mind criticism, as long as it doesn't boarder, or go into, flaming.

Casmut: Why thank you! Don't you just love Xiggles? I didn't come up with that one, that was the person I was rping with, but she only used it once. I've decided that it's here to stay. D You've seriously never heard Sexy Zexy? My friends and I use that one all the time for him. You must admit, it is true. I never was a real big fan of Zemyx until I started writing this. I was more a fan of LuxDem or XigDem, which is why the story MIGHT turn into a XigDem later, I still haven't decided where that aspect of it is going to go yet.

AllyIsSpecial: Many thanks! I've tried hard to stay true to Demyx. I just adore him so much, I'd be forced to shoot myself in the foot if I broke away from that.

Namikun masaki: Aw, you flatter me, and flattery will get you EVERYWHERE. I think we're all waiting to see that. Fans self I might be drooling too much to actually write it when the time comes! Haha!

Well, I hope you people haven't completely given up on me yet. Hopefully this will start coming together faster. I mean, a month between chapters two times in a row? I seriously apologize, there's no excuse for that. See you next time!


	5. Chapter 5: Tattoes and a Shared Bed

Juukai sayz: Hey peoples! …I'm kinda bummed. I got literally one review over that last chapter. Did you all leave me? I see lots of favorite story and story alert adds, though, so **THANK YOU, YOU AWESOME ADDING READERS!** But the sudden disappearance of reviews scares me. Alright, so I went to Jampcon. And it was amazing. For serious. And I reconnected with the RenoxRufus fangirl in me. Sigh It was good. Look on Photobucket for JAMPcon pics by Juukai, and there ya go! There's even two of me in my zebra char. Cosplay. Anyway, onward to the story!

Disclaimer: fanfiction. F-A-Nfiction. Do we need to break out the flashcards?

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**Chapter 5 **

Zexion hefted Demyx up again, the dirty blond a deadweight in his arms. It was harder than he thought it would be to walk the skinny kid out. Not that he could really call Demyx a kid any more than someone could call _him_ a kid; they were only a few months apart from each other after all. It wasn't that Zexion wasn't used to doing this sort of thing; he had been Demyx's roommate for a year and a half before, but it was more that he hadn't expected to have to do it again. He'd moved away from him, after all, and had gotten a single room. It was supposed to make Demyx angry or upset with him, Demyx wasn't supposed to want to see him again. That wasn't how someone was supposed to react to a friend leaving him to a strange new and older roomy.

Around ten thirty Demyx had passed out at the booth, leaving a still slightly coherent Axel and Riku to continue to attempt to give themselves alcohol poisoning. It was with that thought in mind that he finally stopped the actual drinking part of the competition. Instead, he proposed a test to see who was the most affected by the alcohol already. Axel had whined that that wasn't fair. He could hold more alcohol, Zexion had thought he had slurred, but it killed his sense of balance by the sixth shot. It wasn't surprising he knew exactly which shot would get him, either. And a balance test was precisely what he had ordered to see who the winner was. Riku had smiled in drunken triumph while Axel complained.

Standing both of them away from anything they could try to lean on to cheat, and away from anything they could fall onto and hurt themselves on if they couldn't manage the trick, he made the two balance on one leg and touch their noses with both hands separately. Riku would be able to get away with driving drunk just fine if he ever got pulled over, because he was able to do it with only a little rudimentary teetering. Axel fell on his ass the moment his left hand got to within four inches of his face. Riku had crowed in victory, showing the most emotion Zexion had 

seen come from him other than sarcasm all night. Which was saying something coming from Mr. Stoic himself.

It was eleven by the time that they got out of the bar. Xaldin let Zexion leave early to take them back to the dorm rooms, which was a blessing since he would have been working until one in the morning otherwise. He managed to get Demyx somewhat awake, and he was more supporting him to Axel's truck than dragging him, like he was doing now. The redhead was in the backseat pouting by the time Demyx was settled behind the passenger seat. Riku was going to be sitting up front with Zexion, it seemed. And that was because of the extra part of the bet that he had already planned out in his head. When Zexion climbed up into the driver's seat, Riku leaned in close, reeking of vodka.

"Th'r's a tattoo place that's open till midnight that I passed on my way through town," he tried to whisper, but failed. No one else was paying attention, anyway, though.

"I know the place." Zexion had answered smoothly. He had a tattoo on his right shoulder blade that the proprietor had done.

"Tha's where we wanna go."

Sighing, Zexion drove to the place, deciding that it was not in his best interest to argue with the drunk.

The place would have been easy to miss. Zexion was surprised that Riku had noticed it on his way in, but the white haired youngster just told him that his taxi driver had taken a turn here on the way to the street to the college that went by all the houses. That made more sense, since the parlor was on the corner of a little strip mall. A lime green and purple sign proclaimed that Traversing Tattoos was, indeed, still open when they pulled up and Zexion herded everyone inside before they could get in trouble for drunken loitering.

"He wants a tattoo," Riku told the guy behind the counter as he jabbed a thumb in Axel's direction, slurring less now. He must have been trying harder to not seem so drunk. Couldn't hide the smell, though. The man wrinkled his nose only slightly, and Zexion commended his efforts silently.

"Alright," the man said, raising an eyebrow at Zexion in question. He must have been the only sane looking one, and small wonder. Zexion just shrugged, so the man went on. "What's he want?"

Riku knocked Axel in the ribs with an elbow, and Axel turned to glare at him while rubbing his abused side. "Got a book I can look through?"

They sat down with a binder in hand, searching through its pages with a definite lack of enthusiasm. Riku was the only one really finding cynical amusement in the whole thing. For 

Zexion, he knew that the satisfaction would come for him in the morning when Axel woke up sore as hell with no idea what happened.

"You sh'ld get a f'ce tattoo like yer dad!" Demyx piped up in a voice that was much higher than his normal one. The way he butchered the English language when he was drunk always made Zexion shudder, and now was no different.

"Your dad's got tattoos 'n his face?" Riku questioned, giving Axel an unreadable look.

"Mmm. Red ones right here like this," Axel put one finger right under each eye and moved them slowly up until they almost touched the corner of his eyes.

Riku just blinked at him, and then grinned. "Do it. Get something on your face like your ol' man."

Axel stuck his tongue out like the thought disgusted him, but then he thought better of it. He noticed something in the book and stood up, nearly knocking Demyx, who had been resting his head on his shoulder, over in the process. "Can I get these little bits put on upside down right here?"

No one could see where he was motioning to but the guy behind the counter, since Axel's back was to everyone else. The older man just nodded, and showed Axel over to one of the chairs. The rest tried to follow, but the redhead just shooed them all back with shaky motions, telling them to just wait until he was done. He seemed serious all of a sudden, and his expression was almost like the one that he had had when Zexion had come upon Demyx asking persistently about Roxas. He started to wonder about that, but let it go when he heard the gun whiz to life in the other room. Zexion winced in sympathy. It had hurt enough when he'd gotten a tattoo done on his back, he couldn't imagine one on the face. Maybe that was the only reason Axel didn't want them in there, and he was just putting too much thought into things.

Half an hour later, Axel came out, his cheeks pink from the brand new tattoos that sat below his eyes. They started at the very top of his cheekbones at the center point for his eye and went down about an inch. The best way Zexion could think to describe them was a sort of upside down tear drop done in a deep blue-violet. The artist resumed his position back behind the counter and gave Axel a bottle, instructing him on how to put the liquid inside on his tattoos so-and-so many times a day and to come back if there were any problems or he wanted another one done. Riku was kind enough to pay the bill since Axel had really gone through with getting the tattoo.

And that brought their evening back to now. Riku and Axel had been leaning against each other when they walked ahead to their dorm hall a bit more quietly than Axel was known for. Which was good. Zexion didn't think that his ears could take anymore of Axel's singing tonight. That wasn't to say that he thought that Axel couldn't sing, he just didn't think that he could sing 

as well when he was drunk as he could when he was sober and accompanying something Demyx had written. Call him biased.

Though he was dragging an unconscious Demyx now, he had been jumped earlier. As Axel well knew, Demyx was an affectionate drunk, and he sure liked to hug and cling when he got wasted enough. Tonight had been one of those wasted enough scenarios. When he'd gotten Demyx to stand up to get out of the tattoo parlor, he'd been glomped. There was no other term that fit better than that. And he'd only been able to get Demyx off of him long enough to drive them to campus. By the time they were back and in the parking lot nearest their dorm hall, Demyx was mostly asleep again. Zexion managed to get him out of the backseat and support him before he was truly out.

Going up the stairs without any help was tricky, but he managed to get up all the flights without incident. Demyx's room was at the opposite end of the hall from Axel and Riku's, so he would only check to make sure that they had gotten in alright after he had deposited Demyx. He was still in their hall, only he was in a private room on the second floor. He didn't know any of the people in the surrounding rooms, and he didn't care to. His small band of friends were mostly on the third floor, and he really had no interest in branching out. As he passed, he heard a drunken shout from Vincent's room, and he could see the eerie RA standing just outside of the door. Poor Vincent looked exasperated as he tried to shush whoever was in there. Zexion caught sight of blond hair within, and immediately understood. The blond who had been at the bar with Luxord and Vincent was the one now inside the room making noise. It was Cid, his lover.

"Is he twenty-one?" Vincent asked quietly, eyeing Demyx in Zexion's grasp.

"Yes. We checked at the bar before giving him anything," Zexion was a lot more patient with Vincent than he would have been with anyone else that knew where he worked and how he was a guy that lived by the rules, for the most part, since he was only doing his job by asking.

Vincent didn't answer, but nodded him on.

"Don't wake up your neighbors," Zexion added over his shoulder as a farewell, enjoying the small blush that pinked Vincent's otherwise pale cheeks before he walked into his room.

He got to Demyx's door, and dug around in the dirty blond's pockets until he found the key to get in his room. He opened the door as stealthily as he could, trying not to wake up Demyx's new roommate. A light snoring was coming from the bed opposite Demyx's, but those soft sounds stuttered to a stop when the springs on Dem's bed squeaked as Zexion eased him down. The stranger sat up, holding a hand over his right eye as he looked over at Zexion.

"Whassa'matter?" He obviously wasn't coherent yet. Almost like three drunks Zexion knew, but he had a more reasonable excuse to be that way.

"Just bringing your roommate back. Go back to bed," Zexion muttered softly, pulling the blankets over the gently breathing body he was leaning over.

"He do this often?" The other asked, brushing his gray streaked black hair out of his face with his free hand, his voice still gruff with sleep.

"No. Now go back to sleep, Xigbar," he had gotten the name from the paper nametags on the door. Using his name worked. For a moment, Xigbar looked like he wanted to protest, but instead he pulled his hair up over his shoulder, presumably so he wouldn't be laying on it since it was pretty long, and flopped back down, rolling over so that he presented Zexion with a scarred back.

He left just as quietly as he came, sure to lock the door behind him. Vincent was in his room with the door closed by the time he passed again, and he didn't linger to see if all was well. Zexion was fine with knowing they were lovers, he didn't care. But he didn't need to hear the evidence of it. He continued on down the hall, where he knew the room number that Axel had sent him over the summer was. The door was cracked open, but one look in told him that it would be better if he turned around and left, closing the door behind him. So he did. Let them deal with the repercussions of their actions in the morning; it was no real business of his. Though it did bring up the subject of Roxas in his curious mind once more.

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Axel woke up with a near groan. His initial reaction was to roll over and try to fall asleep again. To try and sleep through the ache that pounded in his skull, threatening to split it. Thankfully there was no nausea; that would have made things, including his disposition for the day, even worse. When he tried to roll a pair of arms that he hadn't even felt above the headache tightened around his waist, effectively stopping him. That made him stiffen and utter a surprised curse that was hardly above a whisper.

Very slowly, Axel began to inch his weight over so that he could get a look at who was cuddling with him while he slept. He was extremely surprised to find that it was the demon of temptation with silver hair that just happened to be his roommate.

Riku still seemed to be sleeping, and while he had held Axel still before, he hadn't shifted since. Must have been a deep sleeper. Just as slowly as before he unwound Riku's arms from him and sat up. Blankets bunched around his bare abdomen, and he looked down.

'What the hell happened last night?' was the question that seemed to be repeating itself in his head as he tried to remember when they had left the bar, let alone when he had lost his shirt.

He brought up one hand and rubbed his forehead, and then his eyes. Last night was hazy after they got done singing. That last song with Riku had been their last one. He remembered singing that girly ass song with Demyx before that, too. 'Bastard better not try to tease me for it,' he smirked though, knowing that at some point the brunette would bring it up for vengeance against some joking jibe he'd make. His fingers skimmed lower on his face, and he flinched away from his own touch with a hiss.

'Damn, that hurt! What the hell was that…?' Tenderly this time, he touched the spot again, wincing when it sent a rush of pain through his nerves.

Riku made a sleepy noise next to him, and his muscles tensed. He got up the guts to look over a few seconds later, and he found a pair of sleep-darkened green eyes watching him just as carefully as he watched them. "Morning," Riku croaked, though he didn't seem to want to move. Which was good. The bed was a lot smaller with two people on it than Axel remembered.

"…Morning." Axel answered back, unsure of what was going to happen next. He had the distinct urge to hop up out of bed and go sit on the other one- Riku's he noticed when he glanced down and saw his own sheets bunched around his waist- while he tried to remember what happened last night before he got his head bitten off. Riku seemed the kind to do it.

But Riku surprised him by sitting up and fixing Axel with a weird look, his gaze pinpointed on the spot right below Axel's eyes that had hurt to touch earlier. Did they get in a fight or something and he had a black eye? "They look different on you now," the silverette muttered, still staring at that spot. "Must be the light."

Axel gave him a strange look. "What look different?"

"Don't you remember anything? You got two tattoos on your cheeks last night." Riku's mouth was still open to say more, but Axel had already shot up off of the bed, yesterday's shorts hanging low on his hips. Low enough to show off a pair of pair of boxers that looked to have little balls of fire with cartoon-y happy faces on them.

"I did _what_," he shouted, making it to the mirror that hung above their dresser unit so that he could take a look for himself. Sure enough, two tattoos sat in those sore spots on his face. He felt around them, still too far buried in his state of shock to say anything, even curse himself for being so stupid.

Riku nodded and continued, "Yeah. Right before we came back here and…" The other boy glanced down, wavering off and letting Axel know that something had happened, and he was right to try and remember what it was.

"What? What happened after that?" He rounded on Riku, feeling even more insecure when the usually cocky man refused to look up. His lime green eyes lost their focus as he tried to remember back. Now that he'd been reminded of it, he did vaguely remember stopping at the 

tattoo parlor and being elbowed by Riku until he chose something. The tattoos probably hurt, but his endorphins must have kicked in early, because he didn't remember that so much.

Neither did he remember coming back. That was all a blank. "We didn't… eh, go all the way did we?" He usually wasn't so awkward about this sort of thing, but he did have to live with the guy for at least the next nine months, after all, unless he wanted to get charged for moving roommates or sell his soul for a single room like Zexion had. Neither were options that he really wanted to have to take.

The other shirtless male shook his head, sweeping his hair out of his face after the motion. "No, I don't think so. I don't remember that, anyway. I think we fell asleep while we were, uh, making out." Axel was glad to hear that Riku seemed to be just as unsure about how to phrase this. It made him feel like less of an immature geek.

Part of Axel, the foremost part, was glad that they hadn't continued. It would have made things even more embarrassing. Plus, if he did ever have Riku sharing his bed in a more intimate manner than last night, he wanted to be able to remember it, and not give either of them the excuse that it was because they were drunk. But part of him was also disappointed. Riku was attractive, and to put it lightly, Axel hadn't been able to find anyone he liked to satisfy his lusts with for far too long, in his own mind. And maybe someday he and Riku would get there, or maybe he'd find someone else. Regardless, that had nothing to do with now, and now was the part that mattered since he had a half naked Riku in his bed, under his sheets, and that thought was pure torture. As was the headache that was still threatening to crack his skull.

On his way to his drawer, where he kept the ever-important Tylenol, he passed by Riku again, ruffling his hair with enough force to almost knock him off the bed. The man hissed, indicating to Axel that either he didn't like his hair touched or he had an equally bad headache. Axel just smirked over his shoulder at him, ignoring the glare that tried to spell his doom. "Get out of my bed, you wanna-be-vampire." For a moment he could feel Riku just stare at his back, and then he heard that arrogant chuckle he was already getting used to.

"Bet you don't say that to a man that often."

Axel hid his growl of indignation behind a cough. "Damn straight," he decided it would be more interesting to play along. "Not when they have six packs like that, anyway." With the bottle of pain relieving pills in hand, the redhead turned back around, getting an eyeful of all that a shirtless Riku meant as he crawled out from under the covers.

'Damn, he's toned! Fuck, I had just been guessing about those abs, I didn't know he really had 'em.' Axel knew he was staring, but he couldn't help it. The way that Riku's boxers- briefs, maybe?- and his pants played peek-a-boo with his hips just screamed for Axel's attention.

Riku cleared his throat, and Axel looked up slowly. "My eyes are up here, dude." He was smirking, though, and holding his hand out to Axel.

"Yeah, but it doesn't really seem like it's your eyes I'm interested in, does it?" Axel joked, fearing maybe he'd gone too far after he said it. But the impatient hit from Riku quickly got rid of the fear.

"Shut up and let me have some of your drugs, _Marshall_," one of the silver-haired boys eyebrows seemed to be twitching under the fringe of his bangs, and that would have amused Axel in any other situation.

Instead he jerked the bottle far away from Riku's grasp with a snarl. "Call me by my middle name again, you gray haired old man, and you'll wake up missing some very important parts of your anatomy."

He was actually down-right laughed at for that. "Whatever, hot shot. Now I know just what to call you as payback for all the ridiculous names that you give me." When he only received a glare in return, Riku held his hand out again. "Are you going to share or what? Were you absent from Kindergarten the day they taught that?"

After staring at the hand for a moment, Axel finally relented, turning his attention from Riku as he poured out two pills. He downed them dry while winking at his roommate, who rolled his eyes. "I was absent that day. I ditched."

"I think you're a year older than everyone else because you failed that grade, not because you took a year off to work," Riku muttered, still holding one hand out while the other rested on his hip. "I'm too hung over for this shit. Just give me two and I'll cut the homework you owe me down to two weeks instead of a month.

"Low blow, Ri-Ri, low blow." He handed over the pills, dodging the hand that was threatening to make his headache worse from behind. "Why don't you have your own pain killers?"

"I swear, I'm going to start calling you by your middle name whenever we're out of this room, _Marshall_, if you don't stop with all the stupid ass names," Riku pulled out the water bottle that had stayed in his bag from the flight yesterday and took a large drink to wash down the Tylenol. "I don't have any of my own because I forgot to buy some from the store last night, and I didn't own any at home, so…"

"Don't call me that," this time Axel sounded whiny.

"Why not? I can think of worse things for your middle name to be…"

"Marshall's a stupid name. The only Marshalls I have ever seen, bar none, have been either complete perverts," Axel glared hard when Riku snickered. "Don't say it. Just don't. 

They've been complete perverts or book-screwing nerds, okay? You don't have hot redheads like me going around getting called Marshall."

"Small ego's obviously are things reserved to Marshall's, as well, since you don't seem to possess one," Riku grinned, his headache lessening enough for him to joke around a lot more comfortably just because he knew that the medicine would start working soon.

"Yeah, yeah. What time is it," Axel asked, taking the topic away from his failing argument to leave his middle name out of the ropes.

"Uh…" Riku glanced at the alarm clock set up on his desk on the corner nearest his bed. "A little after 12:30. Why?"

" 'Cause we're about to miss lunch!" Axel launched himself at his dresser, leaving Riku to give him a strange look.

"Huh?"

"Seriously, get your ass moving. Lunch time here cuts off at 1 on weekdays, and I don't feel like driving anywhere if I don't have to. Gas isn't cheap, you know? So get dressed and lets go," the redhead was currently wrestling his way into a slightly faded black shirt. His problem was that he was trying to pull his head through one of the sleeves in his hurry.

"Try through the right hole, air head," Riku muttered, pulling out a yellow and black shirt for himself that was one of his old favorites, and a pair of baggy deep blue jeans.

"Shut the hell up, old man," came Axel's muffled reply.

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"Did you remember to put that stuff on your tattoos before we sprinted down," Riku asked, shoving his hands in his pockets as they slowed to a walk.

"Yeah, Mom, I remembered. I even have clean undies on, too. You can check if you want," Axel sneered, lifting his shirt up a little.

"Not on your life." Riku wrinkled his nose. "Those are the last things I want to see while attempting to go and get food."

"Because you'd just want to take me back upstairs and lock the room door and we'd never get to eat, I know. Don't worry, Ri, no one would miss us if we decided we wanted to skip 

a meal. Or ten." Axel was back to his shameless flirting. Even he had to admit it was a strange thing to do when he was trying hard to forget how he had woken up that morning.

"I don't really think I need to say this, but I'm going to anyway," Riku interjected, glaring at Axel for the use of the nickname he hated so much. "Last night. This morning. They never happened. That clear?"

The redhead snorted, burying his hands in his pockets and running one finger along the edge of his phone. "Yeah, I got it. No need to tell me. It's not like I wanna go announcing it to Demyx," he shuddered. "The whole campus would know in five seconds flat that I couldn't even get some when I'm drunk."

"Glad to see you won't tell, although I'm a little worried that you don't want to tell your friends the truth." Axel could hear the smirk in Riku's voice.

"Old fucker," Axel muttered, glaring at the ground for the rest of their walk to the cafeteria. When they got there, they just had to flash their ideas at the person behind the counter to prove that they were students, so they wouldn't have to pay, and then they went on. The line-up wasn't looking wonderful, but they always had the fall-back option of hamburgers and hot dogs if there wasn't something to ones liking on the main line.

Currently they were serving chicken breasts, some disgusting looking potatoes, and a selection of vegetables that must have made Demyx a very happy sitarist. Axel made for the hamburger grill, ordering a double cheeseburger with everything on it. There was a serving tray full of fries next to him, and Riku watched him fill his plate, leaving minimal space for his burger.

"How are you not fat with all the junk you eat?" It really was a mystery, if Axel constantly ate like this.

"I'm just that damn talented," came Axel's distracted reply as he tried to make sure that none of the fries would escape his plate and fall to their doom on the floor.

Riku shook his head. "You must be one of those skinny fat people. You look like a stick, but you don't have any muscle, just fat."

"And yet, I could probably kick your ass any day," he grinned up at Riku with sharp green eyes. "Terrible, isn't it?"

Riku's plate had a piece of chicken, some of the vegetables, and a few of the potatoes, which still looked nasty in Axel's opinion, on his plate. "Does the selection ever get better?"

"Nah," the taller boy hung his head and sighed, "not really. Dinner is usually better than lunch, though. The worst time to try and get food on campus is the weekends. Most of the staff stays at home, so the pickin's are even slimmer then. That, and they're lazier. They do brunch 

instead of having each meal and the hours they're open are shorter. Kinda sucks. But that's partially why there are so many little restraints and stuff so close to here. They know a good business spot when they see it." He grabbed the hamburger that was being passed off to him, and lead Riku away towards the tables.

When they got close enough to one to be spotted, Axel heard a shout, and saw an arm shoot up. Demyx was flagging them down. 'Hell, he's waving his arms like he's flagging down a damn plane,' he thought, rolling his eyes.

"He's just as energetic as ever," Riku commented at his side.

"I told you he was always like that." He lowered his voice so that as they got closer the topic of their conversation couldn't hear them. "Rain or shine, he's always like this. Actually, he's worse when it rains. Or snows. I swear this kid is part fish. He gets even more excited when he's around water. No joke, it could be a lake we pass in the car, rain, snow, sleet, mist, a pool so chlorinated your eyes fall out before you get wet." They were getting too close, so he stopped.

Demyx grinned up at him, patting the chair next to him. "Hey, Axy!" He waited until Axel sat down, and set his food down before he grabbed Axel's face in both of his hands and made the surprised redhead turn to face him. Then the dirty blond leaned in, studying Axel's cheeks with enough intensity to make Axel blush slightly.

Axel was feeling a little uncomfortable with the position. Demyx was a little close for his person comfort. Really, there had to be only one or two inches between their faces. He tried to glance over at Riku, but he was tilted too far towards Dem to manage. Instead, he just got an eyeful of Zexion. And the waiter didn't look happy. His face was still mostly emotionless, as usually, but Axel could see a slight pinch in his eyebrows. That was a good hint; that and the fact that the one visible blue eye looked like it was trying to see if Axel could burst into flame just from will alone.

"U-uh, Dem? What are you doing, exactly?" He was trying not to look down at him. That would only make him more uncomfortable. He didn't really do this kind of contact with friends. It got weird. Sure, he'd joke around, but not usually to this extent unless there was some kind of attraction there. And he didn't feel that for the spunky little guy.

"Looking at your tattoos." Well, at least he sounded slightly serious. That was a change. "I'm trying to see if I like them or not. So shut up and let me make up my mind."

"That's all fine and good, Dem. But I think Zexion's going to jump me behind the gym if you don't let me go," he glanced over at the purple haired boy dressed all in black, who suddenly refused to make eye contact.

Demyx let go right away, and he and Axel leaned away from each other immediately. "What? Oh…" He glanced over in Zexion's direction.

"I am not." Came his remark on the subject. Zexion picked up his fork and started poking at his food, muttering, "Drama queen."

"Keep telling yourself that, short stuff," Axel grumbled, taking the shot at Zexion's height since he started the name calling first.

"Anyway," Riku inserted forcefully when it looked like Zexion was about to make another low remark. "You drank almost as much as us, Demyx. How come you don't have at least a headache like Axel and me?"

Said excitable boy just shrugged. "I don't know…"

Beside Riku, Axel snorted. "This kid never gets hangovers. I don't think his body knows how. He can drink like a fucking sailors, last night for example, and the next morning he's as perky as ever. It really sucks when he's the one that wakes you up after a big party. He's loud and obnoxious, and he won't take 'let me sleep, you fucking moron!' as his hint to get out."

"Poor baby," Riku snickered before taking a bite of his chicken. "Did the mean ol' Demyx make your headache bigger?"

"He's cranky when you wake him up like that!" Demyx whined, leaning around Axel so he could look at Riku, his fork dangling out of his mouth. "I almost lost an arm trying to wake him up for classes that day!"

"You drink like that when you have classes?" Riku gave Axel a disapproving look.

Axel gave him a seething glare, which lost part of its effect since his cheeks were slightly puffed out from the big bite of hamburger he had just taken. "U-on't-owe-waf-a-erminances-err." He growled out, though he did keep his mouth mostly closed for the benefit of everyone at the table.

Riku and Zexion gave him a strange look. "Wanna try that again, this time in English," Riku asked.

" 'You don't know what the circumstances were.' " Demyx translated cheerfully, his eyes on the peas that he was currently trying to stab onto his fork.

"How the hell did you understand him?" Riku shook his head. "Never mind. I probably don't want to know. I don't care if I didn't know the circumstances, just try not to keep that same habit this year, okay? That, or go sleep with Demyx and Xigbar."

"It was one time. One. Time." Axel held up one finger, waving it around to help Riku realize that it had only happened once.

"Hey guys!" Demyx shouted, getting everyone's attention. But he was looking over towards the serving lines. "Over here!"

Riku saw the new group that he was waving to, and hoped that their table had enough space. There were four others heading their way, one of the girls, for there were two, waving back shyly at Demyx. They only just had enough seats and space for everyone.

"Alright, Riku, introductions," Axel said in a low voice to just Riku. Then he spoke louder, "Everyone, this is Riku Staley. He's my roomy this year, and he's pretty cool, even though he's a bit of a jackass. He'll fit in with the gang perfect. Alright, Riku, time to learn more names. The little blonde beauty over there next to Zexion is Naminé. She's shy at first, but then she opens her mouth once she's comfortable with you, and WHAM! totally makes fun of you when you least expect it." He took the time to stop and wink at her, and Naminé just stuck her tongue out at him. "She _can_ be nice, though, and her art'll blow you outta the water, just like Demyx said last night. Next to her is Larxene. She's a total bitch, just stay away from her or you'll probably catch some kind of disease." Axel dodged the carrot slice that was thrown at him, and ignored it when the blonde with the antenna hairstyle, Larxene, flipped him off.

"The wall sitting there next to Demyx is Lexeaus. Good luck getting him to talk. You have a better chance of getting Nam to strip dance for the whole cafeteria." At that point he was stopped by the whole table, except for Naminé and Lexeaus, shouting at him.

A chorus of "Don't say that kind of thing!"s and "_Axel_!"s echoed around the table. Namine turned bright red and looked down at her food while Lexeaus just pretended like nothing had been said. Axel, on the other hand, was fairing the worst from the slap to the back of the head he'd gotten from Demyx and the kick to his shins from Zexion.

"Ouch! Okay, okay, I'm sorry! Gods of the Coliseums, you people are no fun! Anyway, moving on, the last blonde over there is Cid. That's the guy that was with Vincent last night." Axel was still sulking from the abuse, but he looked down the table to Cid. "Where is ol' Dark and Dreary Uncle Vinny, anyway? I thought you two followed each other around like puppies."

"Shut yer mouth, Ax," Cid pointed at Axel with the knife he had just been using to tear his chicken to pieces. That was the only way to describe it, since he didn't seem to be cutting it into any kind of pieces like one normally did. It looked more like he was shredding the poor cooked bird. "'Fore I weld it shut fer ya and stick you on the next air ship ta Atlantica."

"He calls planes air ships," Axel muttered to Riku. "Apparently his whole town does, not that I have a clue where he's from. Some place called Rocket Town, I think."

"An' Vince's at manda'try R.A. meeting, so he had ta skip lunch." Cid promptly dug into his own.

"So you have to eat enough for the two of you to make up for it, Captain," Larxene threw in, grinning sweetly at Cid when he turned a glare on her with a full mouth.

Axel smirked, and then turned his attention back to his end of the table. "What do you think of the gang, Riku?"

A couple curious but expectant glances turned the sea-eyed male's way, but he ignored them. "I think they're all completely insane except for Namine and Lexeaus. And you're their king and Larxene's the queen. Demyx is the court jester on crack."

Cid burst out laughing while Larxene made an affronted sound and crossed her arms over her chest. Demyx whined that he wasn't on crack, but didn't even try to refute him being the jester, if he even noticed that part. Zexion rolled his eyes and Namine giggled cutely.

"Fuck, I'd have to be the King of insane to marry that bitch!" Axel crowd, cackling at the expression Larxene had.

"You're going to be the eunuch of insane if you don't cut it out, Axel," she snarled in return, leaning over the table to glare at him, her antennae wavering a little at the quick motion. "And you, gramps." She jabbed a finger in Riku's direction. "Don't you go lumping us together like that unless you want to be next on the castration list."

Everyone was still laughing pretty hard, except for Demyx (who was pouting), Lexeaus, and Zexion. Riku suspected that if he was in real danger of Larxene hurting him, someone would be interfering, so instead he leaned forward, too, so that while they couldn't be nose-to-nose, they were still a lot closer than before.

"Does he not have the right parts? Or wait, you wanted to be the King instead, huh? Maybe if you can find a Queen crazier than him," he elbowed Axel in the rubs, grinning at the punch in the arm he got in return, "we'll change it up."

Axel kept an eye on Larxene as her face contorted into anger, and then went blank, worried for a moment that he'd have to push Riku out of harm's way. Larxene could have quite the temper, and around campus she was a little known for it.

But suddenly she grinned, and he relaxed, smiling slightly. "I like you, kid," she said, sitting back up. "Got plenty of balls, and that's just what this group needs. Welcome to the gang!"

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Argh. Twenty one pages for you. I love you all enough to give you twenty one pages for being late. Which doesn't make sense to me, since I started this chapter like… the day after I uploaded the other one. For serious. Anyway, please review. I need feedback, you know!

Avi den Kanashimi- ;; ZOMG. Thanks for the only review I got over the last chappy! You make me cry a thousand tears of joy. I'm so glad that you like it! D I'm fond of it myself. It's just kind of growing into this monster… You really think it's funny? Like, none of it seems forced to you? Sigh of relief Thank the heavens, I was afraid that I was putting too much effort into that. I just think of most of the cast as wanna-be comedians, and a generally fun loving crowd. I know that's how me and my buddies are right now in college…


	6. Chapter 6: Gay Rockstars

Juukai saaaaayz: Sorry for the long wait! Seriously, so, so sorry! I kind of had a few person issues going on that absolutely **killed** my motivation to do anything. And then to top it off, I was having a bit of indecision about what I was going to do with the story when I started wanting to write again. God, I'm turning into such a bad person when it comes to meeting deadlines for myself. 3 But hopefully it will get better now. Thank you to the band Metro Station for giving me some inspiration back. XD

Disclaimer: I OWN NOT THE CHARACTERS YOU SEE, ONLY THE ORDER THE WORDS ARE IN AND THE IDEA BEHIND THEM. Thanks.

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**Chapter 6**

Getting the Larxene stamp of approval was the highlight for the few days before the pre-classes party for Riku. Axel ended up dragging him around the dorm halls a lot of the time after their own room was deemed complete. First they helped make sure that Demyx was situated in his room with Xigbar. Axel had told Demyx that Xigbar wasn't really that bad, and it had taken a little time for that realization to set in. Part of that time was spent with Axel and Riku keeping Demyx from just running away from "Xiggles".

"They're roommates," Axel had said when neither of the parties were paying attention, "they have to spend at least a little time getting to know each other. I love the kid, but I don't want him in our room all the time getting away from the one-eyed-wonder."

Xigbar, Riku soon found out, was a tall man. He looked a little bit older than the rest of the students that Riku had seen around campus thus far, except maybe for Xaldin. He had graying black hair, which he explained was just premature gray and that his family was known for it, that was always tied in a low ponytail whenever the visitors showed up. The ponytail went down nearly to the small of his back. He was tanned enough to make Riku believe that he was well accustomed to beach life. (That, and he liked to use the term "dude" a lot, and his general accent just screamed surfer-junky.) He had a nasty scar on the left side of his face, and on the other side was his missing eye. Demyx said that he slept without his patch but, just like the hair tie, it was always on by the time they got there.

Xigbar was a strange character, but no stranger than any of the others in Axel and Demyx's main group, Riku thought. Through all this, Riku couldn't really understand why Demyx had been so afraid of the man. Sure, the first time or three that Riku saw him he had to try to keep himself from staring at the scar and eye patch, but he wasn't really that creepy. He was pretty nice, and he had a good sense of humor. Riku preferred his to Larxene's, and maybe a little of Axel's, even.

Riku and Axel soon saw that Xigbar had a couple other scars littering his body. There was one on his left arm, a long one on his chest, and a grisly one on his back. They never found out exactly where he got all the scars from or what had happened to his eye simply because Riku was too polite to ask, and he elbowed Axel every time he went to. But otherwise, he should have seemed completely normal to Dem. He was a far more "stable" (as Axel phrased it) person than Demyx himself, and hadn't shown any signs of being a mass murderer yet.

As far as unpacking went, they were mostly helping Demyx. The bouncy brunette had his side of the room mostly built of blues and greens that reminded Riku a little of the ocean , just like Xigbar's speech. Axel explained that the boy had a fondness for all things water, and all creatures water related. He was a firm believer of going out in the rain and puddle hopping or having water fights in the middle of the summer. They helped him get everything set up and organized to his heart's content. Axel even went out with him and, against his better judgment, bought him two small fish and proceeded to help Demyx set up their new home. He named them Spooky, a tiny little black moor, and Sparkles Jr., a pretty little shimmery gold fish.

Xigbar really didn't need their help except for someone to hold a few ends of posters to make sure they weren't crooked or anything while they got hung. His shelves for his books almost appeared over night and were basically made up of crates.  
"It's not fair," Demyx pouted, "all he did was put the crates on their sides and he was done!"

"Sorry, little dude," Xigbar cut in, grinning broadly. "You learn tricks like that over the years. Maybe I'll give 'em to you at the end of the year." He clapped Demyx on the back and went back to making his bed in a series of ashy grey and blue sheets.

The rest of the free time they had was spent in Zexions room, oddly enough. His room looked almost bare in comparison to Demyx and Xigbar's. Where Xigbar and Demyx had been quick to brand their walls with band and movie posters and a few random pictures of family and friends, Zexion had nothing, so far. He had been given permission to paint his room as long as he painted it back to its old color before he left, or his deposit would be forfeit. Axel helped out with the painting, Riku just watched and made sure that they didn't start to get high from the paint fumes. Sure, Axel called him a lazy bastard on more than one account for it, but he didn't hold too many ties with Zexion just yet, and the guy only had two paint brushes. He wasn't going to kick one of the other two out of work. And it kept him mostly out of the way, because every once in a while when Axel would grow bored, he'd make sure to coat someone in the off blue, almost purple, paint.

"Axel, for the last time," Riku growled, wiping off a streak of paint from above his eyebrow, "if you paint me and not the walls, I'm going to take one of your lighters to those brand new, tender tattoos when you fall asleep tonight."

Axel snickered at him, not even bothering to feign innocence anymore as he turned back to the walls. Zexion had already done most of the walls on his own by then, but Axel had done his fair share, and he hadn't even made much of a mess besides what he'd flung at Riku or when he'd walked by and "accidently" swiped him with his brush. He was finishing up the closet doors, which happened to be next to the chair Riku was inhabiting, while Zexion was taking a breather out in the hall to get some fresher air going through his system.

"Always with the threats, never with the action." He turned to grin back at Riku, his own face smudged with the not-quite purple paint. The color almost matched his tattoos. "So," he leaned one bony hip against the bed post that had been moved out away from the walls for the painting, "you coming to the party tomorrow night?"

Riku cocked his head slightly to the side, eyeing Axel. He still remembered the last hangover he got partying with him. "What party?"

He received a sigh for that. "THE party. The one that Demyx and I were talking about last time we were in his room." Axel groaned at the blank look he got. "You're supposed to pay attention to what I say all day, every day."

Riku almost wanted to slap that arrogant smile off of his face, but Zexion made his entrance and distracted him. "When Xigbar and Xaldin were freshman one of their friends started the tradition of having a party before the semester starts, and they passed it along to our group."

Riku held up a hand to stop him. "Wait. I thought no one but Axel really knew Xigbar, and he didn't even know him that well before he was stuck in a room with Demyx."

"None of us knew him personally," Zexion explained, beginning to remove some of the painters tape from the doorframe, "but most of us have known Xaldin since our first week. He has a thing for taking freshmen under his wing and making sure they understand the campus and how things work."

This came as a mild shock to Riku. The big wall of flesh and dreads was a little intimidating and he didn't seem the kind to be so nice. Although that seemed to be kind of a consistency, considering he knew from meal time experiences that Lexeaus was a gentle giant.

"Demyx and I are playing for the party. Hence my disappearance every night after dinner," Axel said over his shoulder, preparing a tape ball of his own that would most likely be launched Riku's way before they left.

"And here I thought I was just lucky enough that you would be a social butterfly and leave me alone every night until it's your bed time." Riku smirked, crossing his arms over his chest, not bothering to move and help. Zexion didn't seem to care, and he wasn't about to go near Axel when there was still wet paint on the walls and he had a sticky ball in his hands.

"Ha, ha," Axel retorted, sarcasm plentiful and deep in his voice. "Demyx always helps me practice. Whether it's for a play, or singing, both, or just some jam time. And I always pay him back by going out with him whenever he feels like playing that silly sitar of his in the rain, or when he decides one of his songs would be better if part of it was done by me."

Riku stared for a moment, internally smiling at the sound of the depth of the friendship that the two had, even though Axel seemed to pick on the poor kid so ruthlessly. "Can't wait to hear you two at the party… Maybe if I get you drunk enough again it could be truly amusing."

"Lighter. Sleep. It won't be pretty," Axel growled, glaring evilly at Riku with zero effect and no intention to follow it through. "We're pretty damn good on our own, ya know." He stood up, looking as overly confident as usual. "And I don't know if it stuck the last time you were told, but I play a mean guitar."

"They were a big hit last year," Zexion threw in quietly, watching them banter between the clumps of his bangs.

"Well, yeah. Demyx _is_ going here for music, after all," Axel trailed off, using one short fingernail to try and pry loose a long strip of tape from the wall. "He would have a good ear for that kinda thing."

Riku looked between the two, then sighed. "I'll go. Since we don't have any schoolwork yet I really don't have anything better to do anyway."

Axel smirked broadly; his canine's looking longer and giving the grin a wolfish appearance. "You know, we could ditch the party and find something better to do."

Zexion snorted as Riku spluttered, finding great amusement in the comment and reaction. It was clear that there was the potential for something there, or it had already begun.

"Axel, keep your delusional fantasies to yourself!" Riku finally managed to retort, his voice pitched just slightly higher than normal. It only made Axel's smirk grow.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

Riku tugged lightly at the hem of his shirt, feeling very much the out of place stranger. The crowd was surprisingly big for the party, and he had excused himself to a nearly empty corner of the auditorium they were inhabiting. Larxene had passed by at some point before the official start of the party and had tried to drag him out of his seclusion, but he refused to be forced from his spot. There had been a muttered rude name or two when she finally left him alone, but at that point he knew her well enough to know that she really didn't mean them. Xaldin had passed by at some point, playing the good host although he didn't say more than three words to him, and Xigbar could be heard over most of the crowd telling some rambunctious story or another to whoever would listen. A couple of times he caught a glimpse of the one-eyed man, and Riku could tell that he was really in his element in the big turnout.

Some other members that he'd met at meals were seen in small breaks of the crowd, but key members that he knew a little better than the others were missing. Like Zexion. The quiet youth hadn't been seen at all yet in the hustle and bustle of the festivities, which struck Riku as kind of odd. He sounded like one of the ones that was interested in this particular party for whatever personal reasons. His dunce of a roommate was also missing, but he supposed it had something to do with the fact that the band wasn't even on yet. People were starting to get a little anxious to hear some music, though, so Riku knew that it wouldn't be long before Demyx, Axel, and whoever else would be helping them play came on.

As he was getting his third soda, some ice cream flavor-gone traitor and turned beverage, sea salt or something, the lights dimmed a bit. There was a stage tucked away opposite of where Riku was hiding away as best as he could and there seemed to be mist pouring out from beneath the still closed curtains. One spotlight flickered into life, brightening the one spot Demyx just happened to be checking the crowd from, blinding the poor boy and sending him reeling back where he belonged behind stage. If the whole room hadn't have been laughing, Riku was sure that he could have probably heard Axel laughing hysterically at the blonde.

The curtains parted after a moment, and neither Demyx or Axel were anywhere to be seen, though their fog machine was still going strong and adding an eerie background to Xaldin, who was standing directly in the center of the stage. Some of the crowd looked curious, while others just shook their head and went back to previous conversations. Obviously they knew what was happening and didn't care.

"Alright everyone, shut the hell up," Xaldin growled into the mic, looking out expectantly into the throng. A couple people refused to follow directions, and Xaldin silenced them when he shouted their names and reminded them that he knew all their dirty secrets, being a bar tender to the drunk and loose tongued.

"Now I know a few of you don't like this part," he continued when he had his sought after silence, "but you were all newbies once, too, so shut the hell up and let me do to them what I did to you."

Riku didn't have a clue what he was talking about, but listened obediently as he sipped on his soda.

"I want you all to treat these guys nicely, got it? If I hear about trash-canning the half-pints, or duct taping them to the walls or any of that nonsense, I'll make your life a living hell, because I got ways of figuring out who did what on this campus." Riku grinned, knowing that Xaldin would never really be all the rough unless someone really pissed him off. He'd heard enough from the gang to know a lot better. And from the smiles on most of the faces of the people there, Riku also knew that it was common knowledge. "You know the drill, Larx. Shine the light on the new guys."

And Xaldin was off and running with the names of new freshman, and each terrified individual, or overconfident one, and there was no in between, had the light shone on them. It picked each out expertly in the swarm of students, causing Riku to think that Larxene was truly enjoying her job and that she had been introduced to everyone at some point in time. He was actually zoning out a bit, feeling sorry for the poor saps who were basically getting embarrassed in Xaldin's attempt to both protect them and get other people to notice and make friends with them. That was until he was blinded by the spotlight himself. He froze, staring stiffly in horror out at the crowd for being singled out.

"And last, Riku Staley. He's not a Freshman, but still new to Traverse Town none-the-less." He was interrupted when Xigbar suddenly crawled up onto the stage, pushing his friend aside with gentle force.

"Stop boring the kids and let them have some fun already, Fuzzy Face," the scarred man ordered cheerfully into his partner's microphone before he turned back to the mass of bodies. "You guys wanna hear some music, right?"

The general consensus was a yes, or so the deafening roar signaled. Xigbar threw an arm around Xaldin's neck, much to the others apparent dislike, and dragged him out of the light, but the curtains closed before Riku could see if they were heading backstage or to a way back down to the main floor of the party. There was a few moments where there were a few murmurings of the crowd, but now with the promise of music, they were mostly waiting for the blast of noise instead of starting up old interrupted conversations. The lights changed from white to red and blue before the curtains opened again. Demyx and Axel were on stage, both bent over their instruments in a way that implied lifelessness or sleep.

Whereas Riku had expected Demyx to be playing a guitar or his sitar, he was hunched over a keyboard instead. Riku couldn't exactly see his clothes, but they looked dramatic and outlandish, like they belonged to a rocker in the '70s or '80s, even from the small glimpses he was getting. He thought he saw a corset kind of shirt with silver lacing or straps going around his chest and arms that caught the light and reflected it beautifully. Axel was the one bent over a guitar, wearing a tank top that exposed much of his flat stomach. He had fingerless gloves on his hands, and he was slowly strumming out the beginning of a throbbing tune. Somewhere in the background, in the dark where the lights didn't touch and the smoke poured thickly from the dry ice machines someone played a dull, slow beat to match Axel's guitar. As the tempo picked up, Demyx began to add a few key strokes here and there. As the song picked up more and more, they began to straighten back up, dull and dead expressions on their faces.

As the song finally was getting fast paced and very techno, and the crowd was starting to break into dance, they finally grinned and Demyx leaned forward to start singing into the mic that was positioned in front of his keyboard perfectly to catch his voice. Axel had one, too, in front of where he had started off the playing, but he was now moving around, standing over next to or behind his mullet-haired friend, moving back closer to the invisible drummer, though being careful to stay in the light, and back by his microphone by the time Demyx and he were into the next song and he needed to move in to provide backup vocals.

Even more surprising than their outfits, which were precisely what they had appeared to be even when the redhead and blonde had been bent over, was that they were doing an amazing job at performing. Their voices were a perfect harmony, as was their playing. From Riku's memory of their party night, he knew that they had been good, but the alcohol must have caused them a little trouble that night, because they were doing much better now.

While the two played and sung their hearts out on the stage, Riku began to move around. He found that Naminé had forced Xaldin into dancing with her, though he looked a little uncomfortable. To spectators it just looked like if he wasn't careful he might break her, which could have been why he looked so awkward. When Axel and Demyx calmed down a bit and Axel slung his guitar over his shoulder so that it rested upside down behind his back, grabbed the microphone set up for him, and started singing in a low, amazingly seductively yet sweet voice that Riku never would have thought could come from that mouth . He saw couples form and get in close to dance to the slow lulling notes of Demyx's keys and Axel's voice. Riku even saw Vincent give in to Cid's pouts and held him close while rocking slowly back and forth. It was all very cute, but it made Riku feel a twinge of loneliness and brought to mind images of Sora that made him wince and excuse himself outside for a moment, where he waited with the smokers until the song was over. He preferred not to think of Sora when he could help it.

When it was finally time for the band to take a break, he was finally managing to mingle with some people he knew who weren't trying to dance, or refusing the big eyed girls who were asking him to join them when the time came. Without any warning from Lexeaus he was jumped from behind by Demyx, who latched his arms tightly around his neck and wrapped his legs loosely around him for a brief second before he let go.

"Riku! You came!" The fact was mysteriously a surprise.

"Yeah… Didn't Axel tell you I would?"

"Nah, wanted to surprise the shrimp," the redhead's voice informed over the filler music that was filtering through the room's speaker systems while they took a breather. He was grinning evilly as he reached over and ruffled the blonde's hair lightly.

"Hey, knock that off," Demyx screeched, reaching up to protect the precious locks. "We still have to go back on, you know, and you're messing it all up!"

"Yeah, yeah. Like it doesn't already look like a rat's nest," Axel sighed, before flashing Riku an arrogant smirk. "So, about ready to drop on your knees before our greatness and ask us to sign your forhead?"

The silverette snorted, crossing his arms. It was definitely his Axel. "From that little show? Please. It takes a lot more to get me to worship you. Give me another hour of music and a few good opportunities to get some blackmail pictures of you in these outfits, and I might consider it."

Demyx looked slightly, yet comically, offended. "I'll have you know I made these!"

"Out of things he found at the thrift store," Axel snickered. "He won't admit it, but he worship's this weird guy that's a bigger flaming homo than I could ever hope to be that wears the weirdest clothes whenever he performs. Name of Setzer or something like that…"

"He is not a flaming homo! Shut up Axel!" Demyx screeched, stomping his foot. Before either could even laugh at him for such a silly display, he turned on his heel and walked away, stopping only to speak with Naminé.

"Did you just insult his favorite teddy bear or something?" Riku asked, confused.

"Nah, it's one of the rock stars that was really only known on the main islands when he was popular. It was like… back a couple decades." Axel was looking out over the crowd, not even really paying attention to Riku that much at that point. "So, were they enjoying the show? With those lights on we can't really see out into the audience."

Riku stared at him for a moment, not really wanting to feed that monstrous ego before he realized that Axel really needed the encouragement, that he really needed that boost, because that ego was mostly just a show. On the outside, Axel looked perfectly at ease just eyeing the crowd, but he caught a hint of fear in those bright green eyes. His sarcastic retort stopped in his throat, and he coughed it unconvincingly away. Axel turned a skeptical look on him, fearing that it was a polite cough to indicate that they hadn't done so well perhaps, but Riku went on before his low esteem in his show could run away with him.

"You guys were great," he managed to keep his face unreadable, not wanting to give the tattooed redhead too much to play off of. It was hard enough complimenting him after that bowing comment as it was. "Everyone was dancing, and they were cheering loud enough even for your deaf ass to hear."

Axel grinned from ear to ear, slinging an arm around Riku's shoulders. "Awesome! Nah, I really couldn't hear over the music, and I was trying to concentrate mostly on playing. I'm still a little new to some of Demyx's latest creations, so I didn't want to screw it up and get an earful from that small fry later. He can be a pissant where his music is concerned."

Riku looked out through the crowd, ignoring the lengthy limb invading his personal space. He spied Demyx, still bothering Naminé, though he was beginning to drag her off closer to the stage, Xaldin and Xigbar following in his wake. "Seeing how excited he is about this, I would believe it." The kid was absolutely glowing, even without Larxene's expert lighting effects.

Axel sighed dramatically, plucking the soda from Riku's grasp and taking a long drink. "You should see the kid when he's got his hands on some studio time and he wants me to help in a recording. You think he jumps around and chatters like a chipmunk when you give him sugar, you should _really_ see him then."

Riku grabbed his soda back from Axel as he was in the middle of his second drink, making him splutter and cough. "You want something to drink, get your own, you mooch." He shook the can, sighing heavily when he discovered that Axel had finished it off in that simple drink and a half. "Jerk."

Axel cackled, ruffling his hair. "Nah, I gotta get my skinny ass back on stage, anyway. We're almost done, anyway. Xaldin plays Daddy and doesn't let the party last too long since school's about to start up. He knows that if we really want, we'll party in our own rooms or our buddy's, but at least he doesn't have to listen to his conscience if someone that was here misses classes."

Sending Axel a scathing glare, he grumbled, "then get back up there, idiot, and leave me and my drinks alone."

In less than ten minutes Axel was gone, and he'd managed to track down Demyx and drag him back on stage enthusiastically. The music that had been pouring through the speakers through some hidden stereo stopped, and an orange light now shown through onto the curtain. Somewhere along the line in the few minutes they had back stage before the curtains opened, their outfits had changed to something equally as outdated and theatrical. Larxene must have practiced with them at some point, because the colors she used and the timing she had with the music was impeccable, and it had Riku staring. At one point Naminé herself came and asked him to dance, and he just couldn't seem to refuse her as he could the others.

It wasn't as awkward as he would have predicted, and after the first dance, he was actually enjoying himself. A couple of the other group members, including some of the new students that had also been singled out that he didn't really know, joined them after a while and they all formed a circle. The night passed quickly after that, and soon the last dance was called, a slow, smooth melody where Demyx sung gently in his sweet, almost child-like voice he got when he was trying to sing low and soft. Axel treated his guitar like an old lover, playing it perfectly and gently with tender experience.

When the party ended and Xaldin shooed every attendee out of the auditorium, Demyx and Axel stayed behind to get all their equipment together. Riku and Xigbar stayed behind with Xaldin since they were roommates and buddies with the people working, so they lent a hand in the cleanup to give them something to do while they waited for the others. Everyone still had a bit of an excitement buzz going, so the work didn't take long to complete, and soon they were minus one side-burned man and on their way back to their rooms. Classes started the next day, although they were all the later classes. Classes that started earlier in the day wouldn't begin until the day after, just to get teachers and students back into the way of things. All the students who partied to bring in the new year would be able to sleep in a little, though not as much some, such as Axel, would have liked. And of course, this also meant that Axel would have to wake up Riku, which he had learned could be a very dangerous affair. After the incident of their first morning, Axel had felt confident that he could wake his roomie without incident, especially since he had managed to fall asleep alone in his own bed. This was not so, he found out as he nearly got his hand bit off.

"You dudes did awesome tonight!" Xigbar congratulated, clapping Axel on the back as they walked slowly back up their stairs. Axel had his guitar and one amp in hand, while Demyx had already dropped off all of his gear in one of the music rooms. He'd left early to accomplish it and still catch up, but Xigbar wasn't about to let anyone complain since it kept his room from getting too cluttered with his roomies stuff. "Seriously, you have to have a concert sometime before the years up so I can drag ol' Fuzzy Face along. That would make a pretty radical send off fer all us seniors, ya know."

"Yeah, yeah, Patchy,' Axel sighed, rubbing his eyes while he balanced his guitar case precariously against the wall to wait for someone to open the hall door. "Ask me when I'm not completely wiped, 'kay? That gig exhausted me."

"Aww, c'mon Ax!" Demyx piped up, ushering the spikey haired youth through. "You can't be serious? I thought you were the partier of the group. Even last year you would have been looking for a drink or two and some more laughs after a lot more playing than that."

"Don't call me Ax," he growled, forcing himself up the stairs. "And that was when we didn't have all those friggen lights and a live crowd in those days, Dem. So shut up and let me be old and tired."

Riku snorted, doubting that Axel even knew how to even act old, let alone _be_ old.

"Alright, kiddies. To your separate corners," Xigbar interjected, grabbing Demyx lightly by the back of his neck and dragging him towards their side of the hallway. "See you runts tomorrow at classes. Be good now!"

Axel didn't even look back over his shoulder; he just waved sluggishly with his guitar case, trudging off to their door. "See ya."

Riku gave a short wave, unlocking and opening the door for a truly exhausted looking Axel. He was staring off into space, moving only after Riku had given up holding the door open for him and had entered himself. The redhead kicked the door shut, dumped his instruments carefully but lazily at the foot of his bed, managed to get his shoes off without even touching them, and landed on his bed. He moved only once then to put his cell phone on the floor next to him and pull his blankets up to cover his gangly form. Riku took the time to strip down to his boxers and put his wallet and phone where they belonged before he crawled into his own bed, and while he burrowed in to his own sheets and blankets because their air conditioning unit was set low enough to call for it, he heard a muffled goodnight emanate from the maroon and black mass across from him. Smiling softly, Riku murmured a response before turning over and relaxing so that sleep could take him away.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

And there you have it! All done and ready for your eyez. Enjoy it, yes? Those other shorts will be coming up soon, I promise. In the meantime, I thank all of you who have stuck along with me up till now, especially since it's been 3 months or over since the last chapter update. Coming up in the next chapter are classes and a little surprise since our boys are acting students, after all! But in the meantime here are the review replies! -

ToraYashaChan- Lol, thank you very much. I'm glad that you've enjoyed it so much! Especially the banter, which I try hard to keep funny but not forced. w; You'll just have to stick with me and find out if they ever actually realize they want each other a little more than either lets on. :D

Avi den Kanashimi- Sorry about the distracting missing characters. I have a beta, but we both tend to miss stuff every once in a while. But thank you for reviewing. I appreciate it very much. And my campus was like this, but you just have to find those people that make it this amazing, I guess. Lol.

Rulisu- Where to start? I've never gotten such a long review before! It made me want to cry with joy, and I will fully admit that I was rearing to write after reading it. It was so flattering, yet I could tell that you were being honest all at the same time. Thank you so much! Seriously! And yes, that would be Goddess, even though I don't tend to agree ; But thanks again for the compliments. I've tried so hard with this story, and that people love it is amazing and nearly worth tears for me. I do want to be an author one day, and so I see this as practice, and it helps to broaden my writing abilities. I try to make the characters talk as I know real people do today; a lot of the dialogue style is based off of how my own friends and I talked to one another while I was in school. And yet with all that I also wanted to make sure I stayed true with how Disney and Squeenix designed these simply divine characters. Promise that you'll see where all that foreshadowing was going, please? I swear, I do have somewhere I'm going with all of this, and I would like to hit 20 chapters at least! :3

And special thanks to ILoveNumber8- Hope, XXAkurokuXXLoveXX, Marlin Lette, Favrite of Chaos, and namikun masaki for the lovely reviews. Really, if it wasn't for all of you guys, I wouldn't even want to finish this as quickly! Love you all! w


	7. Chapter 7: Drop Dead

Juukai says: Hey y'all! Nice to see you again! I'm trying to get a little better in my update schedule. As I am writing this new chapter, the last one is just now being uploaded. How's that for trying to be productive? No telling how long it'll actually take me to write it, though. Hopefully I'll get this beast shaped out and posted before I start working. Got me a job at my favorite theme park in the world, for those of you who don't know my deviantart account and haven't read the journal. Part time, though, so I should be able to still write without issue. The main problem might be internet, but we'll jump that hurtle when we come to it. And I will be sure to let you all in on it if I won't be able to get internet without going somewhere temporary and paying for it every once in a while when I can afford it. Now, let's say we dump the glum updates and get on with what you are here for? ON WITH THE STORY!

Disclaimer: **I OWN NOT THE CHARACTERS YOU SEE, ONLY THE ORDER THE WORDS ARE IN AND THE IDEA BEHIND THEM. Thanks.**

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**Chapter 7**

It was hard to motivate himself to actually get up the next morning. While it was true that classes were set to start later than they normally would that day, that didn't make the fact that he couldn't just roll back over and start snoozing again any easier. But the alarm clock was buzzing a static ridden and annoying tune, and he just couldn't manage to fall back asleep with the noise. The worst part was that it wasn't even his own clock that was making the disgruntling sound.

"Axel," Riku groaned, not lifting his head from his pillow, choosing instead to speak into it while he was sprawled out on his stomach. He never claimed to make sense in the morning, so he really didn't care.

The soft, breathy snores on the other side of the room stuttered for a moment before evening back out, making Riku moan again and finally pull himself up a little. But that was only so he could grab a shoe and throw it at his roommate. "Axel, get your lazy ass up and turn that thing off!"

The shoe hit the wall, making the snores stop, though there wasn't any movement from the bird's nest of blankets and sheets until that same shoe fell heavily into the mass. There was a whimper when it hit, obviously managing to find a less padded area on the sleeper buried inside via some homing beacon of karma that Riku was eternally grateful for.

"Wh't'imeizzit," the garbled and sleep-deepened voice of the redhead asked, one arm stretching out from his warm cocoon to slap the droning machine into silence.

"Whatever time you set it to go off, you moron," Riku growled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes before trying to get his hair into some kind of decent tangled mess until he could get a brush through it. It liked to stick up at odd angles after sleep, and he hated the looks he always got from Axel for it. He really needed to remember to tie it back whenever he was getting ready for bed. Though knowing him he'd only get it stuck permanently when he tossed and turned in his slumber.

A muffled answer, something sounding close to "name calling is unbecoming", though that was a big word for so soon after waking up, was his only reward, and he was tempted to actually find something with some real weight behind it to throw next. He forced his eyes to finally open, and cast them his clocks way. 10:30. In the AM. Axel was dead.

"Why did you decide that we needed to be up now when we only got to bed at almost 2?!" The mystery heavy object was sounding better by the second.

"Hey. I didn't know we'd be out _that_ late," Axel snorted, heaving himself out of his bed in one fluid motion, only bothering to untangle himself from his sheets once he was standing. He threw them back on the mattress to be sorted out later and sat himself back down in his computer chair instead. "I set it before I even went to go get Demyx for the party."

"How can you even be this coherent," Riku whined, flopping back on his bed and snuggling his head back under the pillow.

"Nuh-uh, sleeping beauty!" His comforter and pillow were snatched away from his body, leaving a chill and a blast of light. "You take a while to wake up all the way, and we need to leave for our first class in less than an hour."

"I'm going to fucking kill you if you don't leave me the hell alone," he glared menacingly, grabbing for his things.

Axel just whistled lowly, green eyes burning with mischief. "You sure got a dirty mouth when you're waking up, you know that?"

"My mouth is going to be the least of your problems!" The silverette snarled, launching out of the bed to pummel his tormentor.

He was easily dodged and quickly shoved down into his chair. "Now, now. It's not good to go flinging your nearly naked self at your gay roommate. Unless you _want_ to get raped, that is," Axel added with a dramatic wink. Riku inwardly groaned, wishing he had a gun. "But then we'd never make it to class and Demyx would come in with the cavalry, and it just wouldn't be pretty."

"Axel, seriously. Until you give me coffee, lots and lots of coffee, just shut the hell up," Riku put his head in his hands, praying to anyone who would be listening that his roommate would either spontaneously combust or get struck by lightning. Whichever would be the most grisly and painful. "I ask again, how the hell can you be this awake? You were the one doing most of the work last night."

Axel just shrugged, running a hand through his sleep tousled hair and looking out the window. "Dunno. Just am." He looked down at the hand that had just been through his red mane and made a face. "I'm going to go take a shower. I still have all the crap Demyx put in my hair last night sticking to me. See ya in ten." He grabbed his towel from his closet and disappeared out their door.

Their dorm hall had communal bathrooms, showers included. And Riku had learned that while he had a few ounces of modesty left despite his knowing that he was pretty damn hot (though some just accounted that to his ego), Axel had none. He would take the shower that was out in the open baring himself for anyone to see. And he was the typical male in that he would walk back to the room, which was a fairly long walk, in nothing but his towel. It was one instance where Axel was still dripping but had bothered to come back to their room to dry off that Riku noticed how long his tattooed roommate's hair really was. It was a little easy to forget since he always had it spiked. But when it was wet or damp it hung loosely to his shoulder blades at its longest.

Shaking off the images of a wet redhead that would soon return to bother him, Riku turned back to his desk and opened his laptop, checking his email and generally poking about a few of his favorite websites to wake himself up. When Axel finally returned he found the sea-eyed grump immersed in something he was reading on the internet with his headphones on and turned up loud enough so that he knew he wouldn't be heard if he tried to talk to him.

"Crank," Axel muttered, throwing on a pair of boxers before he started trying to towel dry his hair again. It always clung to water like it was a man dying of thirst in the desert, and sometimes took forever to dry if he didn't go at it more than once. Since he had waited so long to wash it, he knew that he didn't have a chance of getting it dry enough for gel to make it stick in his usual spiked style, and so he just reached over onto Riku's desk and stole one of the hair ties that were stuck around some of his pens. Riku sent him a scathing glare but he just shrugged and mouthed "you ain't using it" before tying most of his unruly red locks back. A few escaped the tie and framed his face and gave him bangs, but he was used to that happening when it wasn't full of gel so it didn't bother him that much. He went to his dresser and pulled out a pair of snug fitting jeans that were comfortable enough and a shirt that hung off his bony frame just right that read "glue a mirror to your chest, I might look at you then." When Riku finally got up to start getting dressed himself he looked at the shirt and then rose a silent eyebrow at Axel for it.

"Gift from my father," he explained smoothly. "He gets some big kick outta giving me shirts like this. Might as well wear 'em, though. A shirt's a shirt."

Right as Riku was tying his last shoe a loud knock echoed on their door. Axel shouted the okay to whoever was knocking that it was safe to come in, and a bouncing brunette awaited them.

"You aren't ready yet? We need to leave," he whined, even when Zexion put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Hold your horses, Dem, we're almost done," Axel waved off the complaint and grabbed a black backpack that was covered from top to bottom in sarcastic patches sowed on over fabric painted on flames. "Just let Ri get his stuff and we're outta here."

"Axel," Riku growled, elbowing him harshly, "stop calling me that."

Axel 'oof'ed softly, though it didn't stop his grin. "You like it. Anyway, hurry up. Luxord, that bastard, will make class a living hell if we don't get there on time, so it's usually best to get there a bit early, and you're eating away all that early time."

Riku grabbed his cell phone and book bag, checked to make sure that his wallet and keys were safely tucked away, and then walked out before Axel, leaving his roommate to lock the door. "Do we all have the same class?"

"Nope," Xigbar answered from his spot behind Zexion. "But I'm going to be close to you little dudes, so I figured I'd walk with ya."

"I am going to my advanced art class," the grey eyed male supplied in his quiet voice.

"I'm with you guys though!" Demyx was extremely enthusiastic in his answer. Riku wanted to shoot him for being so perky this early after the previous night. He was acting a lot like Axel, which warranted anyone getting shot. "But I think that's the only one of the day that I have with you, Riku. On regular days me and Axy will have the class before this one together, too."

"You should already know that, Riku," Axel interjected as the group began to move on to the stairs and ultimately towards their class. "We compared schedules and stuff when we got them."

Riku gave him a withering look. "I'm not fully awake yet, shut up."

Everyone but Riku and Zexion laughed. On their way to the academic buildings they picked up Naminé, who smiled shyly at everyone and wished them all a good morning, and Lexeaus, who was apparently going to be sharing a class with Xigbar. He was in higher classes because he planned to graduate early, Riku was later told. They saw a couple other people that the rest of the group seemed to know on the way there, but no one that made a point of coming to walk with them. Once they were inside the building, Zexion and Naminé broke away from the group, the latter waving goodbye as they walked off to their art class. Xigbar and Lex left them after that, disappearing through a doorway on their left with little more than a goodbye between them.

"And this is us," Axel declared, pointing to a room that was quickly filling up in seats. Mathematic babble was already scribbled on the chalk board when Axel, Riku, and Demyx took the only remaining three seats in a row open. Riku made sure to sit between then to keep the noise down to a minimal level, especially since this was their math class and not exactly his best subject. Those were the science based subjects.

Just a minute before class was to start a short haired blonde with a good few piercings to his name, though all in his ears, stalked into the room. He had a few books and binders tucked under one arm, which he set on the front table before scanning the room. Riku was surprised to notice that it was the same man that Axel had yelled at the one night in the bar, the one next to Cid and Vincent. And suddenly things made a little bit more sense in his head. "This is _that_ Luxord," he asked Axel in a low voice.

"That would be Professor Downes to you," the blonde in the front of the room cut in, a definite accent from one of the British Isles that flowed into Never Land on one side.

"Sorry, sir," Riku muttered, contrite. He tried his hardest to always be some semblance of polite to his professors unless they were complete assholes for no reason. A couple chuckles went on around the room, mostly from Demyx and Axel, but everyone else was concentrating on the bearded blonde in the front of the room.

"Alright, I see a few new faces," the bearded man said, eyeing said new students. "My name is Luxord Downes, and I will be your mathematics, and for some of you logistics, professor. Be on time to my class every day, or I will lock you out. No exceptions. Phones best be turned off in my class, or I will answer them for you. If you have questions, ask." He grinned, the twisting of his lips looking more cynical than anything. "I'm only here to teach you, after all. It's my pleasure to help."

Among all of the new students, Riku wasn't the only one who either swallowed deeply or shifted uncomfortably. The others who knew better just chuckled and got ready for the lesson. Riku was a little hard-pressed to keep up with Luxord- _Professor Downes_ in that first class, but as Luxord- _Professor Downes_ told the newer students who didn't know better, "time is money, so if you waste mine you're a crook." It wasn't that Riku was stupid, he actually kept up alright with Axel and Demyx, it was just that math was one of his weaker subjects.

After Luxord's class, he found out that when class wasn't in session he was allowed to call him Luxord just as Axel and Demyx normally did, he and his redheaded roommate split from Demyx when he went to go to his music class and wandered off with Axel in the lead towards the theater that their acting class was in. Since Riku had taken a few rudimentary acting classes in his high school and his first year in college, he was allowed to join the same level class as it turned out Axel was in. Surprisingly enough Naminé was even in their class. A couple other people that Riku recognized from just being on campus and from the party the previous night were lounging on the stage and a few of the front seats. Naminé, ever the shy girl, joined their sides immediately, greeting Riku with a cheerful hello and giving Axel a brief but happy hug.

"Okay, so who is our professor here, and what do I call him?" Riku was attempting to keep out of the trouble that he'd had with Luxord.

"That would be Squall," Naminé answered with her clear voice.

"Yeah, Squall Leonheart," Axel confirmed. "But only she," he hooked a thumb at Naminé, "can ever get away with calling him Squall. Everyone else has to call him Leon. And he doesn't care about formalities. He'll tell you to call him Leon no matter what, so you might as well just do it."

A pink haired man, looking young but at the same time too old to be a student in this Leon's class entered. For a moment Riku was afraid that this was Leon. Though the name sounded a little tough for a man as… _effeminate_ as this.

"Oh," Naminé saw him looking at this stranger and jumped to explain, "that's Marluxia. Well, Professor Ikeda, really. He's a voice coach, and he likes to come in during his free periods to come and see the how things are going."

Riku looked at her for a moment, wondering how exactly she was such a fountain of knowledge on their professors and how she apparently got away with calling each of them by their first names.

She just saw him staring and must have figured he was trying to figure out how she knew so much about this particular professor and smiled sweetly. "He's the professor in charge of the Gardening Club."

"I never would have pictured you in little apron and gloves out in the dirt," Riku murmured, looking her over.

"One of my members with the greenest thumb, actually," the pink haired man, Marluxia Ikeda, answered. Apparently Riku hadn't been paying enough attention and he hadn't even noticed when he was getting closer to their little group.

Naminé's smile widened and there was a soft dust of color to her cheeks. "Marluxia, you know that's not true."

Marluxia seemed perfectly intent on talking only to Naminé, not that Axel seemed to mind. Axel really didn't seem that happy that Marluxia was that close, truth be told. He kept shifting uncomfortably, like being around the voice coach just bothered him a bit. And Marluxia showed no apparent interest in Riku other than the initial bragging over Naminé's skill.

A door in the back of the theater shut loudly, and it finally drew Riku's attention away. And, thankfully, it made the older gentleman move back from the students to stand closer to the stage. It took a moment for the person who entered to become visible from the ascending rows of seats, but when he finally did Riku knew immediately that this was Leon. His dark brown hair was a little shaggy, but it suited him, nearly covering the scar that ran between his eyes. They looked kind enough, but he could just feel from the leather-clad man's presence that he did not deal well with nonsense.

"Alright, settle down," his deep voice ordered for those who hadn't taken the sharp sound of the door as their hint to be quiet. "I need to do an attendance call, and then we all need to sit down and talk."

He began calling names, checking most of them off before he even got answers. Acting was a year-long class, Axel informed him out of the corner of his mouth during the call right before his own name was called, so Leon had known them all for a year and had gotten everyone's faces down.

"And I'm a quick learner, Axel. Now stop wasting time and say 'here' already." Leon was giving him a dry look.

Axel just grinned like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar and put a hand behind his head. "Ya caught me! Here."

And down on the list it moved. Naminé was called with the L's (Riku was surprised to hear her last name, which was Laverock. It fit her, oddly enough.) There were no more names that Riku really knew until it was his own. Leon's hand hesitated over the clipboard that the attendance sheet was on, and he looked up when Riku uttered a low but confident "here" as ordered. For a second Leon's eyes drifted on him, and then he shrugged ever-so-slightly, as if to himself, and moved on.

"Now that we're done with that," he said, emptying his hands so that he could cross his arms over his chest, "it's time to talk about the fall play."

A few groans went up through the students, but there were also a few excited murmurs.

"I want your opinions on what we should do. The decision will also be put before my other Acting II class, but the Freshmen won't get to vote on the choices."

Riku's eyebrows furrowed. "Aren't there any higher classes?" The question was directed in a near stage whisper to Axel.

He wasn't so quiet about answering, but Leon didn't seem to have noticed the interruption. "Yeah, but they do their own assignments and usually leave the fall and spring plays for us and the Freshies. At least, that's how it was last year, and how it sounds it's going to be this year since they don't get to vote."

Axel was quick to fall silent again when Leon started talking again, not wanting to be subject to more polite snipes. "Now I don't want each and every one of you to come to me during or after class just to tell me what you think we should do. So here are the guidelines." He picked his clipboard back up and lifted up a couple pieces of paper until he found what he was searching for.

"Marluxia and I decided on these, so I don't want to hear any complaints. First off, we're going for a movie turned play. Keep in mind that we don't have all sorts of extreme special effects when you're trying to think of something. Older movies are preferred just so that we can keep you little punks from trying to get too special effect's excited. Depending on what the ultimate choice is and how large of a cast it calls for, we might be doing some open calls to fill in characters, but it's mandatory that _all_ of you audition, even if my regulars back there are just manning the behind the scenes work. Practice might be long and brutal, so keep that in mind. There will be a lot of working with Marluxia, and I'm only warning you now so that I don't have to hear you whine later," he eyed Axel at that exact moment. "Any questions?"

A few hands flew in the air, but Riku wasn't really paying attention. He already had a movie in mind that he wanted to suggest. Axel was looking at him while Naminé was talking softly with Marluxia. As soon as he was done with the questions, Leon realized that he had already lost the attention of most of his class, so he told them to talk it over and at least wait in the theater until ten minutes before the class was supposed to let out and then they could leave if they wanted. He nodded once to Marluxia himself, said a couple of low words to the man that no one caught, and disappeared out of the same door in the back that he had come in through.

Axel was chatting excitedly with a few people in the class, and Naminé was throwing in her thoughts every once in a while. It only took about fifteen minutes before many conversations strayed from the topic they were supposed to be concentrating on, but with Leon gone everyone was relaxed and uncaring of his fact. But Riku was still thinking on it. More like he was imagining what his choice would look like on opening night with those he had cast in his head in their perfect roles.

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The first day of normal class hours was a little rocky, especially when Axel tried to wake Riku up that early. It wasn't all that bad, Axel still have all ten fingers and toes after the experience, but he would be sporting a bruise on his side for a couple days. They made a store run that night and got a twelve pack of the cappuccinos that came in glass bottles, just so that Axel would have something to throw at him before things got messy from then on. Riku's favorite class besides acting, oddly enough, would have to be the chemistry class that he had with Professor Vexen Calder. He was more into the biological sciences, but even with Professor Calder's tendency to be a little finicky and seem a bit like an insane scientist, he taught his class well and attempted to keep it interesting for those that were paying attention.

The schedule of classes, homework, and dealing with Axel and Demyx was actually falling easily into place. He even found himself enjoying it and missing his time with the latter two if they disappeared after dinner for some music time. It made Riku almost wish that he knew how to play an instrument other than the recorder he'd been forced to learn to play in the third grade. But Axel always came back in a happy mood and he tended to cheerfully pick on Riku even if he looked a little worn out. They spent a lot of time each on the computer. Riku was constantly talking to Kairi over some instant messenger server or another, and sometimes Axel would pester him until he let him in on the conversation. Kairi didn't seem to mind after the first time. She held her own against Axel's teasing quite well, even though she always complained about being at a disadvantage since Axel had seen pictures of her up on Riku's wall and she had no idea what he looked like. But Axel always countered by telling her that if she knew, she'd just fall in love with him and he didn't have the heart for long distance relationships. About then Riku always declared himself in neutral territory because they would start bickering like siblings and one would try to use him against the other. He was always smart enough to pull out just in the nick of time.

As their patterns of life fell together, Riku was starting to consider a part time job.

"Where you thinking of applying?" Axel asked over dinner one night. No one had really arrived yet since they were running a little earlier than normal.

"My uncle owns a business around here," he replied between bites of the chicken pasta that he had bravely proclaimed he would try. "The place my father manages is actually a branch of it."

Axel looked at him for a moment, then leaned in a little closer and rose one eyebrow. "Hey, I know you said that your dad ain't the cheeriest guy. Is your uncle any better?"

Riku waved off his concern with a slight twinge of annoyance on the inside. On one hand it was nice to have someone actually worrying about that, but on the other it was a little irritating that Axel thought he couldn't handle himself if the situation was too bad. "He's a lot better than Kadaj. Uncle Sephiroth's actually the one that is helping me the most right now anyway. It's not Dad putting the money for groceries in my account, I'll tell you that. And since Sephiroth is already giving me money, I might as well work for him. A part time job will give me something to do with all my extra time until the play is starting anyway."

Axel looked a little doubtful, but there wasn't much he could say, especially since he was going to be working part time on campus himself in one of the café's they had in the academic buildings in case students couldn't make it over to the cafeteria between classes. "Just don't pile too much on your plate, okay? I know that right now you get kinda bored, 'specially when me and Dem decide to go practice instead of entertaining you, but believe me, it'll pick up around here. Leon really makes us work on those plays, so it'll step up a lot when we get to that point, too."

Riku just rolled his eyes and tossed some of his hair out of his face so that he could see and eat without it hindering him. "Sephiroth isn't going to be an ass and tell me that I have set hours. He'll probably work with me just like the school works with you about your hours."

Axel opened his mouth to say something else, but Demyx and Xigbar interrupted them. Xigbar had taken a certain shine to them all, and he often convinced Xaldin to join their group instead of sitting off by themselves in hopes some of their other friends might join them.

Riku did listen to Axel a little, though. He decided to wait until Leon announced all the information on the fall play before he called his uncle. Leon had counter balanced Axel's advice the day in class when they spoke about it for his was quick to inform that the series practices were still a month or so off, and so each student that worked still had time to do so and wouldn't have to worry about rescheduling their working hours just yet.

"It's come down to two titles. There were about four that got repeated with everyone's suggestions, and Marluxia and I picked the top two." Leon's voice didn't really sound like he'd had much of a choice at all. His expression said that he'd let his production partner have most of the say just to get him off his back. Marluxia's smug expression confirmed that small suspicion, at least in Riku's mind.

"I already had yesterday's class take a vote on these two finalists, so now it's up to you," he was handing out small slips of paper now. "Write down the name of the one you want and turn them in. I've already counted yesterday's votes, so I'll just count these, tell you the results, and give you guys your exercise and you can be off."

That is where Marluxia stepped in. "Your two choices are between the musical Labyrinth and," his expression turned a little, like he was less pleased about the last choice, "Drop Dead Fred which will be have a few songs thrown in to mix it up." A few groans echoed through the theater. "That's right, you will most likely have to sing! Get over it. If it wasn't for that fact, I'd be off looking after the building of the new green house, not here. But I am going to have to work with all of you no matter which you pick."

Riku grinned slightly. His choice had made it to the finals. He scribbled his vote down quickly but legibly and handed it to Leon. Axel had his face twisted in dismay, but he wrote his own down after a moment. Naminé smiled happily, apparently pleased with both of the choices. She took her time writing hers down and turning it in, and then they all waited in the middle of the sea of seats. Once everyone finally made up their minds and handed in their tiny slips of paper, Leon and Marluxia moved to the back of the theater to the light and sound control room where they presumably counted the votes and talked over the options opened up by the winner.

"Which one did you pick, Nam?" Axel stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black shorts, eyeing the petite blonde curiously.

She tsked at Axel playfully. "Curiosity killed the cat, Axel."

"I'm not a cat, and even if I were I'd still have about six lives left anyway, so lay it on me cutie," he winked at her, a wicked grin crossing his face.

She smacked him softly on the arm. "Smart mouth. I picked Drop Dead Fred."

Axel made a face. "Why that one?"

"Because I wouldn't really get a role in Labyrinth, I thought. And I can totally see you as Fred," she giggled at the indignant sound he made.

"She has a point, Axel." Riku smirked and ticked off fingers, "you both have crazy red hair, you're both rude, you both do more harm than help, you're both obnoxious, and you're both clueless and crash. Need I say more?"

"Not unless you want me to dump out all your coffee on you tomorrow morning to wake you up," the redhead growled, green eyes ablaze.

Naminé distracted them before they could even start squabbling. "Here they come."

Leon lead the way, his head down with his brown hair falling in the way of his face. Marluxia was frowning just slightly, and as the two passed Riku could see that Leon had his head down specifically so that his hair would hide the grin on his face. Axel sighed heavily. He already knew which one had won.

Coughing once to get everyone's attention, or to just hide his grin before he got control of his expression, Leon signaled everyone to move in closer so he wouldn't have to speak too loud. "Gather 'round, kiddies." He barely paused before he held up a character list and script. "Looks like we have a winner. This fall's play, and your mandatory assignment, is Drop Dead Fred."

Riku grinned, giving Naminé a high five since they had both picked a winner.

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Well, there ya are. All done and pretty for you, and barely even four days after I uploaded the other chapter, too! I didn't get many reviews over the last chapter, so there aren't going to really be any responses… and I don't have much to say. So thank you for reading, and please remember to review! I will try my bestest to keep uploading in a somewhat timely fashion. I love each and every one of you. w And a big thanks to Ellipsis the Great down there; she's my beta everyone! XD

Marlin Lette- Nah, I'd never stop writing. At least, not without warning all of you anyway. Yeah, we really do just need to lock them up after stripping them down to nothing so that they will just jump each other a lot sooner than they otherwise would. Lol.

Ellipsis the Great- Did you seriously just find me? LOL you loser! XDDD And I know who you are. I was your roomy when you made this account, remember? Dork. Well crap, no I didn't notice that… I'll see if I can change it. How does it feel reading over what you've already beta'd all official like on ? XD Probably pretty good, knowing that you've already satisfied your OCD by getting rid of all the errors beforehand. Snicker


	8. Chapter 8 Like Father, Like Son, Yo

Juukai saaaaaaays: Hello peoples! Sorry for the long wait between the updates. I've actually had this done and beta'd for a long time, but it just never got posted here. When I had internet, it was always fleeting and I didn't have the time to reformat it for , I was busy trying to get my school stuff in order instead. I sincerely apologize. I'm trying as hard as I can to write, but my muse seems to be on permanent vacation. I'm really sorry, guys. I'm trying the hardest I can to get it up for you, because I know I hate waiting for new chapters of stories I'm reading, so why would it be different for you?

Disclaimer: **I OWN NOT THE CHARACTERS YOU SEE, ONLY THE ORDER THE WORDS ARE IN AND THE IDEA BEHIND THEM. Thanks.**

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**Chapter 8**

A month and a half of classes and small social visits otherwise came and went. Axel had joined a martial arts club to try and get some muscle on his thin body so Riku couldn't tease him anymore, not that it was working, and Riku had joined the Kendo team and was already flying through the ranks. He was actually pretty good with a sword, and had been training for years before he joined the school team, unlike his roommate who was starting from square one. Riku did get a job with his uncle Sephiroth as a desk man for the big company. He mostly took calls pertaining to orders, since they were basically a company that sold necessities to other companies. Sephiroth himself took most of the calls, though, so he was mostly playing secretary for the few hours that he worked. But he liked it, and it let him spend a little time with the only family member he had that he actually liked. Most of the people in Riku's family called Sephiroth a hard ass, or a cold and ruthless man that was borderline psycho from time to time, but he only ever knew the gentle voiced man that would smile every once in a while.

He also got to meet his uncle's friend Zack, who came around more and more often. Apparently he was starting his own business as Sephiroth had, and he looked up to Sephiroth and occasionally came over to "ask for help." Riku wasn't blind or stupid, and he knew that Zack was seeking more than help, but he didn't pry. The man was too much like Demyx to get a short and straight answer from, anyway, the way he was always hyper and had an endearingly short attention span that often caused him to forget things.

The whole of his and Axel's acting class had already received their scripts, and had their tryout day. Now all that was left was to wait for Leon to post the list online like he said he would. Which Riku learned to mean that Leon was lazy, and when he finally got around to doing it, it would be up. Friday night rolled around without any sign of the list, but Riku was more interested in the website he was reading. He liked to find stories people wrote and posted on the web to read, whether they used original characters or not, as long as they stuck to the personality of whatever character they were stealing for their story. Axel made fun of him for reading fanfictions, but Riku shrugged it off, refusing to use the term. It was embarrassing, and he would never admit that he loved them.

"This bites!"

Riku rose an eyebrow at Axel, lifting his eyes from the story he was reading to give his roommate the appropriate amount of time to explain his unappreciated outburst. When it didn't come, Riku sighed. "Elaborate."

Axel rested his chin on his desk. "Leon posted the cast list for the play already."

This was news to Riku, but he shrugged. "And…?"

Axel gave him a stern glare, like he should have been able to piece together why this fact led to his declaration. "I'm Fred."

Riku leaned back in his chair a bit more, putting his fingers together in the shape of a steeple, a smirk twisting his lips. "This surprises you? Naminé and I told you that you were going to get it. There's no one else that could possibly play it better in any world, let alone this campus. Cover up your tattoos, frizz your hair, slap a green suit on you, and you could be twins!"

Axel's glare intensified with every word Riku said until he finally looked on his desk for something and threw one of the pieces of candy he had floating around at the white haired man. Riku just laughed and ate it.

"I just don't want to play Fred," he whined.

"Why not?" Riku was surprised that Axel was being so bad about it. "I would have thought that he would have been your favorite character. A jackass of an imaginary friend who's violent, sarcastic, and most of the time a complete idiot."

Axel snorted, putting his head back down on his desk. "Nah. Was never really a fan of the movie, even as a kid. Pops loved it, though, so I had to watch it a lot anyway."

"Well suck it up," Riku grinned. "I bet you'll love it by the time you've got your lines memorized. And the suit will match your eyes so well." He dodged the next object thrown at him with a laugh. "Anyway, who did I get?"

Axel just crossed his arms. "Why should I tell ya? Look it up for yourself if you're so interested. You ain't getting shit from me for a week for all the crap you just said."

Riku was too amused to really say anything to Axel, though he did mutter, "drama queen" before he went ahead and checked the website that Leon had posted the cast listing on. It took a minute for him to find his name and trace it across to the character he was assigned. And when he saw it he let loose a sound that had him earning a look from Axel that was a perfect imitation of the one he'd given the redhead earlier.

"What's your issue?" Axel looked over and saw what Riku was staring at on his computer screen. He saw that it was the list their professor put up and smirked. He scrolled down the page until he saw Riku's name and burst out laughing uncontrollably. He didn't even stop when Riku came over and hit him with a good amount of strength on the shoulder. He took a moment to finally be able to speak again, but when he was able he was teasing Riku already, even though the silverette stood over him brandishing his fists and threatening a painful death.

"You're that sleaze-ball Charles!" He couldn't help it, he started laughing again as soon as it was said, and he couldn't seem to stop himself. Eventually, when blows didn't work, Riku started pouting and looking like he was going to fall into a generally black mood. That was when Axel finally tried to reign himself in. "Alright, I promise I won't complain about being Fred anymore," a chuckle escaped his control, and he hid it in a cough, even though Riku wasn't even close to being fooled.

"I hope someone backs into your truck," Riku muttered darkly, fishing around in his drawer for his earphones once he sat back down.

"Aww, come on, Riku! If I had been cast as him you know you'd be acting like this too, so don't even try to get all grumpy on me for laughing." Axel leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head with a huge grin on his face.

"Don't care, that's not the point." He gave up searching with a sigh. "Oh well, I guess. I'm just going to have to pretend to be a complete whore like you for a couple shows."

Axel made an indignant sound. "I am not a complete whore," he refuted with a proud look that instantly melted away into a sly grin. "I'm still missing a few parts that got lost in the mail."

"Could've fooled me," Riku mumbled, then returned to the top of the list to see the complete cast. "Who is Yuna?"

"A girl in our year that doesn't really talk to anyone but Paine, Tidus, and Rikku," Axel answered distractedly as he did something on his own computer. "Why?"

"Just looking through the list. Says she's the main character, Elizabeth." Riku looked a little further down the list. He saw his name, and Axel's, and he even saw a few others he recognized. "Demyx got a part," he couldn't hide the incredulous tone in his voice.

Axel looked up at him. "Kid can act when he tries, got it memorized? Never gets big parts, though. Usually he only tries out for something small. Why, who is he this time?"

"One of the other imaginary friends, I think. I don't know the other people who are playing those with him, though." Riku didn't recognize the names, though he might know the faces from class. "Oh, and Naminé got a part, too."

"Surprise, surprise. She picked this play 'cause she thought she'd get a part, remember?" He scrolled through. "And she got a tiny ass part, too. The little blonde girl that shows up at the very end as Fred's new kid."

"You make Fred, and therefore yourself, sound like a pedophile when you put it like that," Riku rose an eyebrow at him.

"How do you know he isn't, eh?" Axel moved to go sit on his bed, apparently done with whatever had been entertaining him on his laptop. "Knows what sex is, 'cause he talks about it, but he's only ever around children. Makes you wonder…"

"That you put this much thought into a movie you hate is surprising and almost unhealthy," Riku murmured, shutting off the light on his desk and closing his laptop. It was still early, but he was tired of being cooped up in their room. "Didn't you have something to do tonight? Someone visiting?"

Axel had his pillow draped over his face, but Riku could still hear him perfectly fine. "To the extent of my knowledge, no. No, I do not have anything to do which is why I'm bored as fuck, and no I do not have anyone visiting to relieve this boredom."

"That's odd," Riku mused. "I could have sworn Demyx was talking about someone you know visiting today." He heard no affirmation, and thought again about his words. "Maybe it was supposed to be a surprise, or something."

Axel dislodged the pillow only enough for one green eye to stare up at him. "There are only two people that would be visiting me that Demyx knows. One of which probably won't happen till it's raining fire and hell is a giant Popsicle, and the other," he paused, but Riku couldn't see his expression, "dear Gods I hope it's not the other."

That left Riku a little confused. Why wouldn't Axel want to see someone who was coming to visit him? "Who would the last one be?"

"Ain't saying, or I'll jinx it." The redhead answered stubbornly. "Just be sure to lock the damn door, please."

Riku rose an eyebrow at him again, but he didn't move towards the door. Instead he just pulled one of his text books from under his bed and opened it while taking a seat on his recently made bed.

"Oi, didn't I just say lock the door?" Axel grumbled in Riku's general direction.

"You might have, and I almost considered it. But then I noticed your legs aren't broken, and that you can get off your lazy ass and prevent whoever is coming to see you from getting in on your own, so why bother?" His cynical amusement failed to show on his face, but he could tell by the way Axel looked at him that it gleamed in his eyes.

"Mean ol' fucker." He growled, ignoring Riku when he reminded the redhead that Axel was older than he was by a good year. Instead he simply started to get up, his face betraying his thoughts as he weighed the possibilities of whoever he feared showing up or not. He flopped back down on his bed in the end, though, digging his phone out of his pocket so that he could call Demyx and see if the guy really did have anything planned.

A cell phone rang just outside their door, making Riku look up as well as Axel. "Shit!" The redhead cursed, hauling his body off of the bed a lot more gracefully than Riku would have thought and lunging for the door. He reached it just as it opened, and it smacked him deftly in the forehead.

"Axel! There's my boy, yo!" A voice exclaimed with a snicker.

"Fuck, Pops, that was my face," Axel griped, nursing his head, from what Riku could see over the tattooed man's shoulder, which wasn't much due to his height. He could see Demyx hanging further back in the hall, but other than that he could only see a set of short, darker red spikes.

"Watch yer damn mouth, yo. I'm still your father, and I'll turn you over my knee with everyone here as my witness," Riku could hear it was a genuine threat, but he also noticed that the voice was still tinged with amusement.

"Shut it, old man. I'm taking martial arts, now. I'll whoop yer ass." Axel sniffed back, moving out of the door way so that the others could come in and unknowingly quenching Riku's curiosity about what this fabled father of Axel's looked like. "Besides, you're the one that taught me to cuss, remember?"

"Maybe, maybe not, yo." The man that strode in was wearing a black suit, the jacket undone completely and the white shirt beneath missing a few of the top buttons so that one could see a toned but pale chest just peeking out from the folds of the clothes that hung off of him, just like his son's did. He was shorter than Axel, but not by any extraordinary amount; he was still maybe an inch or two taller than Riku. His hair was, in fact, the deeper color that Riku had thought he had seen earlier; his was more crimson to Axel's fire-truck red, and there were a pair of dark sunglasses holding half of the wild spikes out of his face. A few, though, still fell and framed a pair of the strangest colored eyes Riku had seen in a while. At first glance, he thought they were green, like Axel's only a much lighter and natural shade, but then as the man's gaze shifted the color swirled with the light, showing that his eyes were really blue with flecks of green and gold in them. Their change from duller to brighter shades depended on how the light fell, and Riku finally decided that strange eyes were just in Axel's family; especially since the bits where the yellow and green met by his pupils almost seemed to glow. It was the kind of thing Riku had only seen once before with Sephiroth's friend Zack. But he decided that must purely have been a play from the light (for both parties). There were the two red tattoos that Axel had said were there, looking as red as his hair on his pale skin right under his eyes. He looked completely relaxed, but even that posture betrayed his ability to beat someone who meant him harm into a bloody pulp if they weren't careful.

Riku belatedly realized that he was staring, but even then it was only because the man he had been studying suddenly grinned and winked at him. "Take a picture, yo. Lasts longer and it's a lot quieter than me."

He felt the distinct urge to blush, but fought it. Riku just didn't blush. Wasn't his thing. He'd leave that to Demyx and Naminé. "Wish the same could be said of your son."

The stranger burst out into laughter, grinning wickedly at Riku when he was done. "Too true, yo. Boy's had a smart mouth on him since he could talk. Don't know where he picked it up from."

"I couldn't even begin to guess," he smirked, glancing over at the scowling Axel.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up you two," he growled. "Pops, this is my bastard of a roommate, Riku. Riku, this is Reno, AKA, Pops."

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Flynn," there was that dratted polite side that had been drilled into him as a child.

Reno snorted at him. "It's only Mr. Flynn to bill collectors and people I don't like, yo." Then he grinned again, putting one hand behind his head. The motion of his hand disturbed a long ponytail Riku hadn't seen before, and he wondered why both father and son had a desire for off hair styles. "And since you've been takin' care of my boy, guess that means it's Reno to you, eh?" He shoved all of Axel's blankets to one side of the bed and sat on it, relaxing up against the wall as if it was something he did every day.

In the meantime, Axel had rounded on Demyx, and was seething at him in a low tone. Riku and Reno caught the end of it. "Why couldn't you at least warn me he was coming?"

Demyx was caught between being amused and being afraid. He knew Axel wouldn't hurt him, but that didn't make him any less intimidating. "He told me not to…"

"Cool it, kid," Reno interjected, tapping Axel on the back of one knee rather hard with the toe of his boot, which Riku just noticed he was wearing. (Who wore boots with a suit?) Axel almost went crashing to the floor, and he turned his glare back onto his father, who only smiled sweetly at him. "I might start thinking you don't love me anymore, yo!"

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"Axel Marshall Flynn," Reno finally said as the small group trudged back down the stairs of the dorm hall. He was taking them all out to dinner with a certain guest he'd left out in the car. "If you don't shut the hell up about me makin' a surprise visit, I'm gonna get my nightstick and beat ya ta death with it."

"Nightstick?" The silver-haired boy following just slightly behind them asked, his off green eyes alight with interest.

"Yep. I used to be a police officer, yo," Reno hooked a thumb at himself, smiling proudly. "Was best on the force."

"If you didn't ask anyone but him, anyway," Axel jibbed, face expressionless but eyes mischievous.

Reno turned to lash out at him, both verbally and physically, but another voice cut in. "Now he works for me in a special unite of, shall we call them, elite security enforcers. And he still thinks he's the best, and any word against that gets ignored."

Everyone turned to see who had spoken, and Reno's cheeks turned a little pink, first with embarrassment, then with indignation, and Riku almost thought for a moment he meant to pout. "Don't you start sounding like Axel, yo," he looked like there was more he wanted to say, but either he didn't want to in front of his kid, or he didn't want to say it to his boss, even if he was off the clock.

The man was definitely not what Riku or Demyx had been expecting. He was thin, almost frail looking, and with hardly any more color to his skin than Reno. His blonde hair was trimmed short and immaculate, and it looked like it always was, even if he were to take a helicopter where he needed to go. He still wore his all white three piece suit from work, just as Reno was still in his work clothes, since they had left the office early after lunch and had headed straight over. It was no short ride, and they hadn't had time to change if they wanted to get to the campus before it got too late, Reno had said when he'd inquired to his own lazily put together business attire. He had blue eyes that were a deeper, more definite color than his employee's, and overall it added that splash of color he needed with all of the white that went on both in his wardrobe and his natural physical appearance.

"I thought you were gonna wait in the car, yo," Reno whined, obviously hating getting interrupted and simultaneously poked fun at.

"You took too long," the man replied with a careless shrug, resting on hand in his coat pocket. "I wanted to stretch my legs a bit after that drive down here."

Reno rolled his eyes. "Demyx, Riku, this's my boss, Rufus Shinra. As in the president of the Shinra Corporation, yo."

Riku's eyes widened, while Demyx seemed to be a little bit more oblivious. "You're Rufus Shinra?"

Amusement deepened the color of the blonde man's eyes. "I believe that was just established, yes."

This time Riku didn't fight down the slight blush. "S-sorry. It's just that I work for one of the companies you do business with, and I've heard you on the phone, I just never thought I would meet you in person."

This seemed to surprise Rufus a little, and flatter him equally. "Who do you work for?"

"Sephiroth Staley, of Jenova. He's my uncle, actually…" Riku didn't know why he tacked on that last bit of information, it was mostly like he wanted to have some claim to Sephiroth as if it would make his story more believable to the business tycoon. Shinra Company literally had their fingers in just about everything. Their logos could be found on anything from a select brand of soda to medical supplies, which they usually ordered from another company like Jenova, his uncle's, and then stamped their title on it. They even owned television channels and had stock in a major cell phone company. Meeting Rufus Shinra, and knowing that Axel's father worked for him, and apparently even a little closely with him, made his mind boggle just a little.

"Don't go gettin' hero worship, yo," Reno said with a touch of jealousy and protectiveness to his face, tapping his fist against his shoulder. "I don't want ta have ta forcibly remove you from our building one day, kid."

"Reno," Rufus chided, his tone clipped but his eyes betraying a patience that went farther than the regular relationship an employer and employee held. He then turned his attention back to Riku. "Jenova is a good company with a lot of promise, and your uncle runs it well. I remind him of that very fact every time I do business with him."

"Not ta interrupt you, bossman, but I'm interrupting you," the senior of the redheads put in. "This is basically a short vacation. Y'know the word _vacation_, right? Means you stop the business talk, and we head the hell out to dinner before I waste away to nothin', yo."

Rufus made a scoffing sound. "You may be slight, Reno, but I know how much you eat. A few minutes of waiting wouldn't make you starve."

Axel finally stepped in, leading Riku to believe that Demyx wasn't quite comfortable enough with Rufus there to put anything in. "No, but he'd bitch and moan until we finally gave him food to shut him up with, so we might as well get going, right? It's sad watching a grown man pout and whimper like that."

Reno punched him in the shoulder. "Watch it, pup. I know how to make your life on this campus really embarrassing."

"Yeah," Axel teased back, rubbing the shoulder that had been abused twice already that day, "and I could make work for you pretty embarrassing, too." He smirked, and Reno spluttered. Rufus said nothing, and his expression betrayed nothing, but by those two reactions alone Riku figured that his hunch had been correct.

"Boy, you're gonna get beat 'till every bone in that skinny body gets broke, yo!" Reno grabbed his son in a stranglehold, his arm obviously only strong enough around Axel's throat to keep him in place instead of doing him any harm.

Axel just smirked, feeling victorious over his father for the first time that night, apparently. "Like to see you try, old man."

"Hey, security's coming," Demyx warned at the slow moving truck turned the corner towards them. Reno let go of Axel begrudgingly, eyeing the other grinning redhead as if he was considering how much damage he could get away with doing. "I think we should go before you two end up getting us kicked off campus."

"I second that," Rufus said from beside Riku, having moved while his attention was diverted.  
"You can tell me more of Jenova once we have the two idiots eating." There was a small smile on the blonde's face that Riku nearly missed, yet that seemed warm all the same, even if the rest of his expression remained stern.

Rufus, being the typical business tycoon, saw fit to treat them to the most expensive restraint in Traverse Town—the Moogle Room, to be precise. It was pretty classy, and the three college students felt a bit underdressed for the occasion, while Reno looked like his appearance would do and like Rufus had dressed planning for this event. Riku and Demyx both picked the cheapest thing on the menu to order, and even though Rufus prompted them to get whatever they desired, they both shared a knowing look at that said they couldn't in good conscience go along with that. Axel and Reno must have been used to the occurrence, though, because they ate and talked without care, louder than the rest at the table, but not loud enough to draw too much attention to themselves.

A couple times Reno almost slipped up and admitted to something that Rufus apparently wanted to keep hidden, like the relationship they had that was becoming more and more obvious to Riku the longer he stayed with them, and almost immediately Reno would tense up and turn to see Rufus giving him a glare that would send him to the grave if looks could kill.

"So," Reno was finally on to subjects about them and their school activities after claiming to be tired of talking (which Riku doubted could ever happen), "what's gonna be the Fall play this year, yo? Did ya get in?"

Riku laughed, aloud at the expression that crossed Axel's face. Reno looked questioningly at him, and he decided to answer since Axel was leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. "He got in, alright. We're doing Drop Dead Fred, and I'll give you three guesses as to who he got cast as. We just found out today."

Reno followed suit in the laughter, the bursts longer and louder than Riku's had been, and now he was turning a few heads until Rufus whispered his name sharply. "Ain't that just you're luck, kid? The movie you hate getting turned to your semester play, and you getting' cast as the main idiot, yo!" If the restaurant hadn't been so high end, Axel might have stabbed his father with a fork. He was looking like he wanted to.

Reno ignored him. "So," he turned to Riku, "did you get a part?"

Riku scowled a little, and ducked his head. "I'm Charles." He almost seemed to brood on the subject as Reno burst into another bought of laughter, which he stifled into the crook of his arm.

"Shiva's right tit, but you two have bad luck with casting, yo!" The red tattooed man cackled.

"I got it easier," Demyx said happily. "I'm Velctro Head. I always did kinda like him, even if he's only there for like… five minutes."

"You would," Axel muttered into his bite of food before he shoved it in his mouth.

"I have been meaning to ask you, Axel," Rufus finally said slowly after a moment of silence broken only by Reno's chuckles whenever he looked at his son or Riku. "When did you decide that getting facial tattoos like your father's would be a good idea?"

"You say it like it's a bad thing I got 'em, yo," the older redhead whined, shifting the sunglasses that hadn't yet left his forehead before his restless hands started to play with the ring in his right ear instead.

Rufus turned a sardonic eye on him. "I don't necessarily think it's the smartest thing for an aspiring actor to have done."

Demyx chuckled at them. "He got drunk."

All eyes but Axel's turned to him, Riku's with colored with amusement, the others with curiosity, so he continued. "He and Riku had a drinking contest, but we all got to drunk. I don't even know if they finished, let alone who won. I know we did karaoke… and that we did go to the tattoo parlor before we came back to the dorm hall. Zexion drove us, I'm pretty sure, since we went to the place that he and Xigbar work at. And then the next morning we woke up to find Axy had his cheeks all marked up and tender."

Reno snorted. "Surprised you found someone who actually tattooed you when you were drunk. They're usually against that, yo."

"Guy knew Zexion from when he got his tattoo on his back done, I guess," Axel shrugged. "Besides, these'll cover up with makeup. I've already tried using some of the stuff that Rude got me that one Christmas."

Riku looked a little confused at the unknown name, yet another in a long string that started with a R. Rufus leaned in to inform him, "Rude is the person that my head of security has assigned as Reno's partner. He seems to be the only one that can actually work with him without filing for a stress leave every two weeks."

"Only two people have ever done that, yo," Reno sniffed with more dignity than he had managed to maintain all night. "And one of those took three months to actually file it and get her vacation." He smirked. "Cissnei always could handle my company better than any of the crybabies we got down there other than Rude and Tseng." Yet more names that Riku couldn't even begin to guess at.

"Tseng is Pops' immediate boss," Axel said. "And Cissnei… She's real close to the family." He smiled slightly, but he didn't seem to be willing to say anything else on the subject, and both Reno and Rufus pretended like nothing had been said. Riku decided it would be something worth asking about later.  
After that, a few topics floated around. Like how Axel and Demyx were doing in their classes, and then the two older men inquired as to what courses Riku was taking, and how he was liking the school so far. They asked where he was from, and Rufus seemed to be the more interested of the two when he told them.

"Destiny Islands?" Reno echoed, raising an eyebrow at him. "That's a teeny tiny place to be coming to here from, yo."

"Oddly enough, Uncle Sephiroth decided to open a new Jenova office there, and my father was the only one of his brothers that was old enough to manage the new branch." As far as Riku knew his other two uncle's were still in their last years of college somewhere, being fraternal twins that looked nothing a like, other than their white hair and green eyes, that were a good seven years younger than his father Kadaj; they were nearly 16 years younger than their older half-brother Sephiroth.

"Curious," the blond man mused, brushing a hand through his bangs as he lost himself briefly in thought. That was, until Reno reached over the table and tapped him directly between the eyes with his index finger.

"I said this was a mini-vacation, yo. Leave work for Monday, bossman." He stared stubbornly at Rufus, refusing to let the glare deter him.

"Wait, Monday?" Axel sounded incredulous. "How long do you plan to friggen stay, old man?"

Reno finally dropped his staring contest with his boss, and stuck his tongue out at his pride, joy, and automatic torture victim. "Till Sunday night, yo." He snickered, "I wanna spend as much time as I can with my _ickle Axy-kins_." If he was within reach of his boy, he might have pinched his cheeks.

Axel seethed. "Old man, I hope you got a hotel room, 'cause you're gonna wake up dead if you try to sleep in my room after that."

Reno waved off his threats with a throaty laugh.

Rufus chuckled softly. "Of course we booked a hotel, Axel. You do have a roommate this year, and, let's face it, we all know better than to expect your father to sleep on the floor without complaining like an old man about his back tomorrow, or something equally as ridiculous."

"He's going to do it anyway," Demyx interjected mischievously, smirking shyly at the glare he received. "He can't last two hours without complaining about something."

"That's it, yo," Reno grumped, pointing his fork at Demyx, even though he had finished eating long ago, "you are so not gettin' a card this Christmas."

They lingered over their plates for a while longer, and Rufus offered everyone a choice of dessert, but only Axel and Reno could still manage to pack away more food, even though they looked like the most malnourished of the bunch. It was getting late by the time they were able to get out of the restaurant, and Rufus drove them all back to campus, but when they arrived he didn't bother getting out. He apologized to them all for not giving them a proper farewell, but he claimed to be too tired from the drive to manage. Reno, stifling a yawn into his coat sleeve, got out long enough to give his taller son a bone crushing hug (Riku could have sworn he heard a couple pops come from his roommate's back), muss Demyx's hair, and give Riku a few good thumps on the back as he said his goodbyes with promises to see them all before lunch the next day. (He knew his boy liked to sleep in, and since he was getting good grades so far, he told Axel he'd allow him the luxury of sleeping a little late just this once).

Riku, Axel, and Demyx walked back up to the room in near silence until Axel smacked the mohawked boy in the back of the head. "That's for not warning me." He turned towards the direction of his room once they reached their floor with a small wave. "See you in the morning, 'cause you're getting dragged everywhere I am as punishment, sitar geek." Demyx's dismayed splutters fell on deaf ears, and Riku waved his own goodbye to the poor blonde boy before he followed the retreating figure of the redhead.

"Your dad doesn't seem that bad," Riku said, pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it into his laundry bin once their door was closed. "Not exactly what I expected, but not bad."

"Nah, I just don't like it when he surprises me like this," Axel shrugged, averting his eyes from the naked torso of the islander before shrugging and copying him. Even after that big meal his skin just seemed to hang off the bones of his ribs and hips. "Just bugs me for some reason. I'd like to at least pick up before he comes over…especially if he comes with Rufus, which he seems to be doing a lot more often lately."

Riku grabbed his brush and a hair tie, setting to work on binding the annoying strands away from his face. He was trying to get into the habit of doing it when they were starting to relax and get ready to go to bed within the next hour. "Speaking of Rufus Shinra, are he and your father…uh…"

"Partners? Doing the horizontal mambo? Bumping uglies? Fuck buddies?" He sat on the edge of his bed, sighing tiredly and putting his head between his hands as if being around his father wore him out. "Yep. Have been for… oh… five or six years now. Probably longer, but that was just when I figured it out. Used to call him Uncle Rufus, 'cause I've known him for as long as I can freakin' remember."  
As Axel started to strip off his shoes and socks, Riku remembered something from earlier that night.

"So…who exactly is Cissnei?"

Axel looked up sharply, then chuckled. " 'Course you would ask." Once his feet were bare he stretched and groaned, falling back onto his bed once he was done. "That's not her real name." He was staring up at the ceiling. "I don't know what it is, but Pops does, and so does his boss, Tseng. All the security guys do, just in case something happens to her so her family can be notified, y'know?" He glanced over his bony chest at Riku, then looked back up and went on.

"Well, she knows Pops' gay. He has been since way before I was born. Guess she knew him 'fore he worked for Shinra, too. I think he was the one that actually got her the job she has now. Pops always wanted a kid really bad for some reason, but since he was gay there was no way in hell he was getting one. She let him stew on it for a good few months, kept asking him if he thought he was ready for a kid and all that. Thing was, he was real attached to this guy at the time, and they were all geared up to start a family, and so they always answered yes. Cissnei, she didn't really like the guy Pops was with at the time, though, but she trusted my old man, so she offered to give him one. Technically, she's my mom. Hence why I said she's really close to the family, but it was really just Pops who raised me. Turns out that guy split before I even hit a year old."

Riku took a few minutes to let it sink in, and then looked at Axel. "You ever wish she helped Reno raise you?" His voice was soft, his tone hesitant.

Axel half sat to look up at him, his mouth open with a retort that was obviously coming fast, but then he sort of paused and considered it, and fell back against his mattress again. "Not really. I mean, a mom might have been nice, but Pops was just fine for me. He's all crash and hard language, but he's sweet enough to make your teeth rot under it all. I never grew up wantin' for very much, either, 'cause when I was about five he switched from the police force to working for Rufus once he started getting enough attention to need a security force of elite officers. And for all that we make fun of Pops, he really is great at his job. Under Tseng, he's the highest ranking of the group, even if he does get a lot of shit for being the goofiest and the loudest." He shrugged finally. "So no, I don't really regret not knowing Cissnei that way. She's always been nice to me, and it's still a little awkward around her sometimes, but it's not bad. She helped me get the scholarship that's putting me through this place, and whenever Pops' needed a hand with me, she's always been there."

He drifted off into silence, taking his phone from his pocket and standing up to plug it in and put it and his wallet on his desk.

"You ready for bed?" Riku asked after another few moments of silence. He just put his own phone and wallet, plus his keys, in his shoes by his bed and slipped his shorts off to trade them out for a pair of black pajama pants with little broken hearts on them.

"Yeah, I guess so." Axel stretched again, and this time it was Riku who was looking pointedly away from his roommate's body as he crawled in under his covers.

"Good, get the lights while you're up." Axel whacked him with a pillow as he passed.

"Lazy ass," he grumbled, shutting off the lights and heading back to his bed. He stumbled over something, and Riku chuckled when he heard his muffled curse. Then he turned over onto his side, busying himself with getting comfortable so he could force himself to ignore the sound of Axel slinking out of his pants and getting into his own bed in nothing but his boxers.

"Night, _ickle Axy-kins_," Riku snickered.

"Oh shut the fuck up, you white haired bastard," Axel snarled in return, chucking a mysterious heavy object at him that completely missed him in the dark and thumped against the wall just past the foot of his bed.

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D: I DID IT! I FELL INTO THE IDIOTIC FANDOM OF MAKING RENO SAY "YO" ALL THE TIME. And I ain't sorry. 'Cause it's catchy. I find myself doing it when I'm really friggen tired. I'll start cussing a lot more, and then suddenly all my sentences, even when I'm talking to myself when I'm moving around the house, end in "yo." Stupid Reno and his stupid "yo"s. . Lol, moving on… Yeah, again, not much happening Least we found out the casting… Damn me and my faulty inspiration device! Where the crap is my muse in times such as these when I have 16 page chapters that do nothing but give backstory?! XD Anyway, thank you to chibibabe07 and My Friend for your nice comments. ^w^ And a most special thanks to Ellipsis the Great, my beta, my Hikaru, my Axel, and the one that made one of my birthday wishes come true.

Isha Falas- I based it really closely on my own dorm life for a lot of stuff, even though I only got to experience one year, lol. But thank you! And I might ask you a few questions pretty soon about some of the acting stuff… I must say, I've never been a theater kid, but I want to be, so I, being the genius that I am, wrote about something I have absolutely no knowledge of. XD

Rusilu- Thank you so much! =D Anyway, I can't write Axy that way… I mean really, there was only maybe twice when he acted like that, but otherwise he was a sarcastic bastard who just wanted his friend *cough*LOVER*coughcough* back. Other than that he seemed pretty pleasant. I say this as a complete and utter fangirl, though.


	9. Chapter 9: Opening Night Drama

Juukai says: Hello all!!! Oh, how I have missed you, my wondrous people. There's been a lot of moving and resettling and dealing with idiotic college people going on. I'm back at school, now, so mayhap being in the place where the story originated will help me push chapters out. I'm nearing the later chapters that I had things written for, in any case… AND THANK YOU SO MUCH ALL THE PEOPLE THAT FAVORITED, ALERTED, AND REVIEWED MY STORY LAST CHAPTER! IT SO BRIGHTENED MY DAY AND MADE ME WANT TO WRITE EVEN MORE FOR YOU! :'D

Disclaimer: **I OWN NOT THE CHARACTERS YOU SEE, ONLY THE ORDER THE WORDS ARE IN AND THE IDEA BEHIND THEM. Thanks.**

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**Chapter 9**

"That's it. I hate Marluxia. Gay fucking bastard." Axel threw himself into the desk chair next to Riku's.

Riku didn't lift his head from his arms. He'd stayed up late the night before finishing an essay he'd been procrastinating on that had been due the class before the one he was now waiting for, and he was tired and trying to catch some snooze time. "Need I remind you that you're gay?"

"Bi," Axel answered instantly, idly inspecting the tiny layer of dirt under his nails. "And that's not the point. The point is that he's a bastard. A fucking bastard, no less."

"You're disturbing my rest for this, so if you insist on being a rude idiot, at least tell me what the hell he did to piss you off. Kick your puppy? Make a dead baby joke? Insult your favorite pop star?"

"Never had a puppy, I'd kill him if he made a dead baby joke, and he wouldn't dare." At the sardonic glare that Axel could only just see coming from the crook of Riku's arm, he that knew he had better answer. "Nah, he's just been making me go friggen hoarse with his voice training crap for the play. As it gets closer and closer that asshole seems to think I'm getting worse, not better by his standards, so more practice with his dumb ass must be the remedy."

For another moment that eye just stared at him. Then it disappeared into the sleeve of Riku's jacket clad arm, for it was already getting too chilly for the islander to go outside without a coat on, and grumbled a weary, "poor baby."

Axel glared at the white head beside him and crossed his arms.

"Your voice sounds fine to me, anyway. You're certainly not going hoarse while you're whining at me."

"That's it, yo, don't ever come to me when you need to voice a few problems. I'm just going to sit on the fence poking you with the sharp, pointy stick of sarcasm like you're doing to me right now," the green-eyed devil snorted.

For a moment Riku didn't bother to grace him with a reply. And when he did, all he said was, "Your parentage is showing."

Axel thought about it for a moment, but it took Riku quoting him to realize that one of his father's sneaky "yo's" had ninja-snuck its way into his speech again.

"Reno hasn't even been here for like… a month and some odd weeks. Where did that come from?" Riku questioned, again slanting his head just right so that one sea-green eye became visible.

"Talked to him on the phone before I had lunch and rushed over to have my session with Marluxia. Must have polluted me then." Their professor showed up right then, cutting off any further comments from either of them, for this professor was older, but he had a strict policy about talking when he was talking. (Rude, the tottering old man called it, pushing the blue pointed hat back up his head.)

Riku kept dozing off in class, but every time he did, Axel would discreetly lay a hand somewhere on him, waking him right back up. At first he was annoyed, and batted the hand away with a grumble before going back to taking his notes, but before long he realized that he was doing it because the professor was keeping an especially close eye on the class that day, and that Axel was saving him from getting kicked out and marked as absent for the day. When he first noticed, he looked over at Axel, who wouldn't meet his gaze and his expression was hard.

Riku decided that the pyro watching out for him warranted him being a little nicer to Axel in the future. Even he had to admit that he'd been a little cruel to the man lately, picking on him relentlessly and having a short temper with him for absolutely no reason what-so-ever. Every once and a while, he thought he heard Axel mutter something like "pull the tampon outta yer ass, jerkoff," but he couldn't be sure, so he'd never actually growled at Axel about that on top of everything else.

When class ended, he was sure to give his roommate a begrudging apology for how he'd been treated lately, and had thanked him for saving him in class multiple times. As obvious as it was that Riku didn't really want to apologize to him, it still made Axel brighten, and the "thank you" made him smile one of his big, warm smiles that made his tattoos on his cheeks twist in on themselves.

"'Bout time you pulled the stick out of your ass," he chuckled. "Who shoved it up there in the first place?"

Riku could feel his eyebrow twitching, but obviously his hair was covering it from view, because Axel was completely ignoring it. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, and we'll both survive with our moods intact, alright?" He started to walk out of the learning building, intent on going to their shared room to relax for the day and get started on his homework. His Uncle had given him the week off, since their play was going to be showing pretty soon, on the condition that he had to go to Sephiroth's house for dinner one night after any of the showings. Riku hadn't been sure why his Uncle thought that would be a "condition" to Riku, but he'd accepted anyway.

"Hey, Beach Boy," Axel's aggravatingly smug voice made Riku want to hit him as he turned around.

"What, flamer?" His eyebrow was twitching even more, but apparently his hair was still covering the tick.

"The theater's the other way, remember? We're only two days away 'till opening curtain. Leon'll shit a moogle if you ditch this, and you'll be as good as dead," Axel snorted, his thumbs shoved through the front belt loops of his pants.

Riku thought for a moment, and then cursed. He was right. "Shut up," he grumbled, righting his course and brushing past his roommate.

"So, when is it you have dinner with your Uncle? I heard you talking to Kairi about it on the phone the other night…" It was a lame attempt at a conversation starter, and even Riku saw that as blatantly obvious, but Axel was trying.

"Uh… After opening night. We can get back to his house relatively early, and he says that he's even going to risk his masculine dignity and cook for me. The only hitch is that there'll be another guest." His uncle had graced Riku with the knowledge that Zack would be joining them for dinner, since he hadn't been able to contain his overflow of pride for his nephew and had invited his "friend" to the show. (And what Riku really got from that was that Zack had found out about the play from one of the people that went to the college, and he'd somehow gotten his hands on a copy of the cast, and had come straight to the Jenova offices to harass Sephiroth about not telling him and his uncle had finally offered to buy him a ticket to go see his nephews debut Traverse Town University show. Or he was just getting an easy way to explain off a would-be date like the shy man his uncle really was under all the posturing.)

"Ah, man. We were all going to hit that pizza place that you liked from before that night. Mean's we'll be down two blondes…"

Riku glanced over at Axel, paying no attention to the hall since it was empty, and he really had no danger of running into someone if he wasn't careful. "Two?"

"Yeah," the redhead sighed. "Nam can't go either. Says she's trying to cut back on expenses right now, so she can't afford the trip."

Well, that was interesting… He'd have to ask Sephiroth if it would be okay if he brought a guest along, too. There was no point in having Naminé being the only one not celebrating their rise to fame. Axel held the door to the theater open for him, and they walked in to be greeted by a nearly complete set, a few fretting other students that were mostly stage hands and the like trying to get everything set, and a Leon that was staring balefully at them.

"You're late," was all the brunette had to say before called everyone's attention so they could get started.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

Riku plucked at the ugly brown suit that had been made for him, tempted to pull his hair back in his face as he was used to wearing it. But Leon would kill him. Curtain opened in three minutes, and his hair had been gelled back away from his face, most of it hidden under the collar of the shirt. He saw Yuna smile meekly at him from the other side of the stage and wave. He waved back, doing his best to smile. That was obviously enough for the little woman who had started to grow on Riku during their rehearsals. She was sweet, once you got past her extreme shyness, and she was always smiling. Almost perfect for her role in this play.

There weren't many people crowding the area he was in; it was against the safety rules that had been drilled into the new kids to the school. If you didn't belong there, move back and stay out of the way. Axel was still back getting all made up for his role, as was Demyx, so he didn't have anyone to try and distract the butterflies crawling and dive bombing his stomach. But he was ready regardless of his nerves. He knew his lines, he knew his character… The only thing that made him really nervous was that his uncle was out there. With Zack, admittedly, but that wasn't the point. With his father, he never would have cared. But he wanted to show Sephiroth that the money he was using to help support his nephew wasn't being wasted. So he was going to be the best Charles he could be.

Yuna started her first lines, talking to herself about what she was going to say to win back her love, just before the curtains opened, and Riku moved to take his place as the car salesman giving schmoozy compliments to a bleach blonde in a low cut shirt.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

Axel had appeared in his bright green suit, which was nearly the same color as his eyes, red hair sticking out in all angles, making him look like some dog that had just shaken off, while Riku was backstage. He wasn't due for a while yet, actually, for his next scene. No it was mostly interaction with Axel and Yuna at the moment, as most of the play was. Yuna was doing well at being annoyed and upset, which was something that rarely really happened with her, to his understanding. It wasn't a stretch of the imagination to see Axel as who he had been cast; loud, obnoxious, goofy, and childish. Even now the man was making a mess all over the house with "smelly, smelly dog poo" while Yuna-Elizabeth dashed after him in a panic. She was yelling at him about her mother, and he was completely disregarding what she said, until she proposed a game of tag. He bounced off back stage, nearly toppling over Riku in the process, even though the man was standing far back from the entryway.

"Watch it, flamer," Riku grumbled, though his smirk gave away his good attitude.

"Shut up, cabana boy," Axel grinned, breathing a little hard. He tended to get a bit worked up with how much he moved around the stage, and just how he had to belt out most of his lines. Loudly and childishly; everything was basically shouting.

"I didn't know you could walk on your hands that well." Riku ignored the elbow he got for that. "Here, I didn't open it yet." He pressed a bottle of water into Axel's hand. There was scene changing going on, so Axel had a while to catch his breath, especially since Elizabeth and her mother had to talk a bit before his cue.

"I'd say I didn't know you could be that much of a slimy little weasel, but I do live with you." The redhead teased in return, swallowing nearly half the bottle down in one gulp.

Riku raised a fist in response, and Axel just laughed softly in response to the threat. He looked back onto the stage. Together they watched as Yuna and Paine, a brunette playing Elizabeth's mother, moved about the "kitchen," and apparently got close to Axel's next part. He took another, smaller sip of the water before leaving it tucked in a corner for later. "Thanks, Riku." He then winked at the silver haired man. "See you in a bit!" And before his roommate could utter anything else to him, he was bouncing back onto the stage.

Riku moved away to the back room where everyone was resting, hearing cries of "it's the mega bitch!" echo out and shaking his head. Axel had adored that he had been allowed to scream that out when Leon had posed the question of cutting it or supplying some other nickname.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

The break in the middle of the show had already come and gone, though it hadn't made any difference to Riku. Most of the time before then had been his break as well. But he got to see Axel again, and Yuna. Demyx was all fired up from how they made it look like he could take pieces of his body off like it was Velcro, and how the audience had seemed to like that. And now Riku was back on the floor, pretending to be a perfect couple with Yuna while Axel complained about it the whole time. But every time he said something to her, Yuna just at a piece of bright green candy that had been explained as the pill that would make her stop imagining Fred, when it was in fact killing him. Each time Axel reappeared, there was more of his hair laying down, and a bit of white make up was added to make him look paler and paler.

And finally Axel-Fred pulled the last stunt. Riku-Charles came onto stage ranting about the literal mudpie that Yuna-Elizabeth had tried to serve him for dinner, wiping at a huge brown spot on his gray dress pants. He set up in the corner of the bedroom, taking the phone in hand and calling out while Elizabeth went to go make a "nice, perfect romantic salad."

Thanks to Fred, Elizabeth ended up hearing when he called to the woman that Charles had been cheating on and fainted on top of Fred, resulting in her being thrown into her own imagination. Riku only had two scenes left before he was through with the night. The set was changed into something that looked like it had sprung out of a toddler's mind, and Elizabeth wandered around in it for a moment. She investigated a few things before Riku showed up again, taunting her until Fred came back, and she finally got the courage to send him off rather violently. Elizabeth was also faced with her mother again, this time only made worse by her imagination until Fred coached her in defeating her. She realized that she could stand on her own through just these two acts, and asked Fred if they could return.

But he only shook his head, his appearance having returned to normal as soon as he had shown up in her mind. He offered her only a simple, "I can't. You've grown up now…"

She made to press her case, but again the redhead interrupted her. Riku knew from all the practices that Axel's song was coming up next, one of the two that had been added in, though the others had been short. He'd staked out a spot right where he was so that he could watch the man, not caring if Leon caught him. He could always just say he was standing ready for his next few lines. A soft music started to play, and slowly, Axel's voice came to accompany it.

"_For a second of your life,_

_tell me that it's true._

_Waiting for a sign,_

_it's all I want of you._

_You're heart hides a secret, _

_a promise of what is._

_Just a second of your time,_

_any one will do._

_A taste of any other,_

_is all I want of you._

_Offer me the world,_

_and how can I resist _

_something more than this?_

_Make believe in magic._

_Make believe in dreams._

_Make believe impossible, _

_nothing is as it seems._

_To see, touch, taste, smell, hear,_

_but never know if it's real."_

Riku could only stare as the redhead moved on the stage, hardly able to grasp the fact that the man he lived with could actually force out a singing voice like that. It was smoother and deeper than he was used to hearing, a product of all those hours that he'd had to spend with Marluxia that he had always been complaining about. He was moving around the stage slowly, touching certain items of the dreamscape, the lights dimming over whatever had been his victim as he walked on to something else.

"_For this second of your life,_

_tell me if it's true._

_Anyway we are,_

_is all I of you._

_Your lips lies a secret,_

_a promise of a kiss._

_Something more than this._

_Just a second of your time,_

_any one will do._

_To know of any other,_

_is all I want for you._

_Giving me the world,_

_know I can't resist,_

_something more than this._

_Make believe in magic._

_Make believe in dreams._

_Make believe impossible,_

_nothing is it seems._

_Never really understand what anything means._

_Another second of my life,_

_Not knowing if it's true._

_Make believe in nothing,_

_is all I want with you._

_Whisper me your secrets._

_Whisper me what it is._

_Always something other,_

_something more than this…"_

With the last syllables still echoing, Fred leaned forward, placing an obvious and gentle kiss against the crying Elizabeth's forehead. Then he pushed her into one of the two remaining lights on stage, everything have fallen prey to him and the darkening effect. Elizabeth reached for him, but he smiled and shook his head even as a tear crawled down his own cheek and the light that he'd stepped back into darkened so that the blackness of the stage swallowed him up. Elizabeth, distraught but with squared shoulders, turned away and walked off stage while the curtains pulled closed. Yuna was greeted with pats on the back that she smiled beautifully to, wiping her cheeks off so that any evidence of the tears were gone for the next act. Axel, on the other hand, was high fiving Demyx over at the stage exit that Riku had been watching from.

"Don't go fallin' in love with me just for my singing, now," the brightly dressed redhead teased upon catching Riku staring, his hands on his hips.

The silverette snorted. "As if, flamer. Your ego is far too big for my tastes." He was grinning in spite of his words, and he knew that it only gave Axel more of a reason to preen.

"Says the man whose email address is sex god-something-or-other," he snickered .

Riku fought a blush, glaring ineffectively at him. "Shut up, Axel." And since he couldn't find anything better to say, he decided to go with the truth. "I have to get back out there."

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

One final scene until they were done. Riku had already completed his part. His last bit had been getting dumped by both the girl that he had been cheating with, and Elizabeth, the latter of which had thrown the romantic salad on him and stomped away. Now it was nearly over. Tidus was finally getting his girlfriend back, since he'd been granted the part of the childhood friend that dates Elizabeth in the end, and takes her home to meet his daughter. As they came in, Naminé came running up to them, managing to look like a small child in the sundress that she wore with her painted on freckles and her blonde hair in braided pigtails. She was running from her nanny, played by some woman Riku didn't know, and really hadn't even talked to during practices, and barreled right into Tidus.

"It's about time you got home," the nanny said. "That little monster…"

"Oh no, what did you do now," Tidus groaned.

"I didn't do anything! It was all Drop Dead Fred," Naminé giggled, pointing as Axel walked on stage making funny faces with two chopsticks shoved up his nose.

"Did… Did you say Drop Dead Fred?" Yuna-Elizabeth looked confused, and then excited.

"'Course she did, are you deaf?" Axel asked in an annoying voice that had Naminé laughing anew but that only she seemed to be able to hear.

"I quit!" The nanny suddenly shouted, stomping out of the room, oblivious to the jibes that Axel was seeing her off with. Tidus ran off after her, trying to talk her in to staying, but Yuna stayed to watch Naminé, smiling knowingly as the blonde girl and Axel linked pinkies, just like it had been shown she did in the scenes from her childhood.

Tidus called for her, and she looked up. Naminé was still having a giggle fit, so Yuna just waved. "Bye Fred," she said with a sad smile, and Axel gave her an equally sad look before Naminé tugged on his arm, and he and her skipped off the stage in the other direction, effectively ending the show.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

"That was freaking awesome!" Axel's voice could be heard over the other multitude of voices in the backstage area.

"Yes, congratulations, everyone," Leon commented in a much lower tone, though he was still able to be heard all the same. "You did very well."

Marluxia wasn't present, and that surprised Riku. He would have thought that the pink haired professor would have been there to hear his little voice pupils in action. But since there were still a couple more days for him to show up, he figured that they would eventually see him. Which reminded him…

"Can I go, Leon?" It didn't really seem like the man had much to say to them.

"Hold on a minute," the scarred brunette answered, shushing everyone so that he could make a general announcement on meeting tomorrow before the next show. He pointed out a few things that they needed to work on a little more, but conceded that it could wait until the next day when it looked like everyone was anxious to go. "Go on, get out of here."

"So you're going out to meet your uncle, right?" Suddenly Axel was right behind Riku, practically breathing in his ear as he spoke to him, and effectively scaring the islander into jumping forward.

"Axel! Don't do that!" He rubbed his ear, pretending that he wasn't getting a little pink in the cheeks. Since when did he even blush? "And yes. He and his friend Zack are waiting for Naminé and I."

This actually caught the man off guard, and he and Demyx shared a curious look. "Naminé? I didn't know Nam was going with you…"

Riku shrugged, loosening the tie he still wore so that he could pull it off, heading to their little dressing room, the other two close on his heels. "Figured that since she wasn't getting to go with the rest of the group, I could invite her to come with me. There's no reason for her to be left out just because she's watching her money."

"That's right," Demyx agreed. "She's lucky though. Wish I could meet the infamous Mr. Sephiroth."

Riku lifted one eyebrow at him. "Why don't you just go out there with me? He and Zack are waiting for us, after all."

Demyx nodded, quickly moving to go get dressed in his clothes, leaving just Axel and Riku, one of them in a growing state in undress. "Am I invited too?" The redhead asked with a chuckle, starting to strip out of his own bright suit.

Riku snorted at him. "Of course not. Why would I want my family meeting you?" He smirked when Axel punched his bare arm. "Just hurry up or we'll leave your ass behind."

"Are you kidding me? Demyx's is going to take the longest. He's got to wash all that make up off. Whereas all I've got to do is this," he wiped his face against a towel he'd dampened with a half empty water bottle and grinned, tattoos now visible again, "and I'm almost ready!"

"Just hurry up and get dressed," Riku sighed, rolling his eyes. He was the first to finish getting dressed, his attire for the night being a pair of black pants and a calm green-blue color button up shirt that had been gifted to him by Kairi. Because, she'd said, it matched his eyes, and there for would look sexy. All he needed to know was that it was his last remaining nice shirt that was clean. Axel was next wearing another random, smart ass T-shirt, this one a dark blue color that oddly didn't clash with his hair, and his pair of black and white shorts that he'd been wearing when Riku had met him. They were experiencing a surprising little heat wave that had everyone breaking the shorts back out and forgetting their jackets in their rooms.

"Come on, Dem, Riku probably wants to get outta here sometime in the next decade." Axel was standing with a hand on his hip while Riku was just leaning against the wall next to the door.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Demyx was currently trying to force his head through the sleeve of his shirt.

"Even your little brain couldn't fit through that," Axel snorted, moving to right the dirty blonde's clothes so that he could finally pull it on properly. He grinned up at Axel in thanks and then shouldered his bag, announcing that he was ready to go.

Riku just shook his head, a small smile playing across his face as he turned his back on the two clowns to lead them out to where he told his uncle he would meet him. As they approached the spot, Riku could see the back of a silver head, the color contrasting so nicely with the black coat he wore as the hair swept down past the man's waist. He caught sight of Zack, obviously speaking of something that he was excited about since he kept gesturing in a way that reminded him of Axel on a sugar high and he had a wide grin on his face.

"There he is," Zack shouted, finally noticing the three walking up. Riku rolled his eyes at him, and the scarred man just stuck his tongue out in return.

Sephiroth turned, gracing him with one of his small, rare smiles, his eyes flicking to allow the other two the expression as well. "That was a good performance. I am glad to see that all the studying here seems to be paying off towards your goal." Riku was used to the calm, ever soft voice of his uncle by now, and he didn't look back to see how his friends were reacting to the meeting.

"Uncle, this is my roommate, Axel, and our friend Demyx," he introduced, "Ax, Demyx, this is my Uncle, Sephiroth, and his… work associate, Zack Fair." There was polite small talk after that, the awkwardness only dissipating when Demyx and Zack seemed to silently realize that their personalities were alike, and they both began to pester Axel and Sephiroth, each to his own friend, in small teases. Sephiroth ignored Zack, a small twitching of his eyebrow the only proof that he hadn't gone deaf, while Axel just puffed up his chest in annoyance and declared that Demyx should either get lost or pick on Riku.

Sephiroth eventually looked down to the watch on his wrist, and cleared his throat softly to gain Zack's attention, since he had been chatting away with Demyx. "I believe that if we wish to eat before dawn, we should be going soon. Where is the girl that you invited, Riku?"

Riku looked around, surprised to notice for the first time that Nam hadn't yet joined them. He'd assumed that she might have just been hanging back a little shyly. As he reached into his pocket to grab his phone to call her, he heard her voice shouting from the building.

"Wait! I'm coming!" She came running up to them, dressed in a simple but beautiful white dress. She was a little out of breath, and her cheeks were pink, though from embarrassment or from the run, Riku couldn't tell. "I'm so sorry. Larxene came to congratulate me on the play, and she just wouldn't let me go, even though I told her you were waiting on me…"

"No problem," Riku shrugged. He went through introductions again, shaking his head and smiling when Zack took her hand and got down on one knee, kissing it.

"Beautiful lady, it is an honor," he grinned, eyes shining.

Naminé looked flustered, even though she smiled prettily down at him.

"You'll only encourage him," Sephiroth sighed. Then he hit his friend lightly on the shoulder. "You're embarrassing the poor girl."

Chuckling, Zack got back up, ignoring the rest of Sephiroth's words. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from Sephy if he gets cranky, okay?"

Riku snorted, deciding it would be better for his help not to comment on that, or the expression on his uncle's face. "Zack, I told you not to call me that," the man glared.

"Now, now! Don't get upset! You'll ruin the celebratory dinner atmosphere!" Zack didn't seem to realize the danger of throwing an arm around Sephiroth, and Riku was surprised when he didn't immediately loose the limb, but was just pushed away.

"Riku, Naminé, say your goodbyes and we'll go," Sephiroth said, nodding his own farewell to Demyx and Axel after saying a few polite parting words himself, and turned to leave. Zack followed suit with enthusiastic handshakes to Demyx and Axel, who both seemed to be trying their hardest to hide their amusement, something Riku wasn't used to seeing at all from either of them.

"I'll see you when I get back," Riku waved, taking off slowly after the two older men. Naminé took a little longer to say goodbye, but she jogged to catch back up with him, and the four of them climbed into Sephiroth's car, which was more than roomy enough to accommodate them all, and drove off to his house.

"Well, guess that's our cue to get going, too, sitar-boy," Axel said, clapping the brunette on the back and pulling him along as he headed for his truck in the opposite parking lot from where the other four had gone.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

The party they had brought together in the pizza place had already been going on for about an hour. Everyone was loud and animated, but it was no different than how they acted anywhere else. At first they had gotten strange looks from some of the other costumers, and from the waitress, but at this point it was mostly just the people who didn't really mind that were coming in, and the staff had decided that as long as they all paid and tipped, and they didn't get any complaints, then they wouldn't say or do anything about their volume.

Demyx had insisted that Axel sit on his one side, and the other had been specifically saved for Zexion, he found out as he arrived. Xigbar and Xaldin were sitting across from him, and he nodded to his coworker as he took his seat. Larxene, Lexeaus, Yuna, her friend Rikku, Tidus, Paine, Wendy (the woman who had played the nanny in the play), and her boyfriend Peter were all present as well. Wendy and Yuna seemed to be the only two a little surprised by the group's antics, though they quickly seemed to adjust and play along, though they didn't get quite as bad as some.

Zexion had been watching Axel a lot throughout the night, noticing where no one else seemed to that the man kept looking around like he was missing someone, and then he would look to realize what he was doing, and suddenly launch himself back into the conversation. It was obvious to the purple haired youth who he was looking for, since the silverette and Naminé where the only two missing from the party. And while he knew that the man was fond of their little blonde, he also knew that he never missed her quite that much if she missed a meal with them. No, there was just the other person that he was seeking.

It hadn't even taken until the six pizzas where delivered to their table for him to decide that the talk that he had been planning on having with Axel was going to have to happen soon; tonight if he managed to catch the man when he was leaving without others being present. Before he could dwell on it too long, he was being distracted by Demyx and the rest, even though he kept an unseen eye always on their redheaded friend. Now he was waiting, because it was becoming obvious that Axel was getting ready to leave. He had already given Demyx the money that was owed for his portion of the meal and had contributed to the tip. He was leaning back in his chair, becoming more of an observer in the conversations flying around the table than an actual participant, as was his usual routine in the dinning hall before he wandered off.

So as he finally gave Demyx a pat on the back, and waved farewell to everyone else, Zexion prepared to follow a bit more discreetly. Demyx wasn't going to follow, he was getting a ride back to the campus with his roommate, whom he had gotten over his fear of a while ago. Zexion himself was going to stop by his work before taking the bus back, so no one was depending on him, and no one would be there to intercept what he planned to say to the other man. He excused himself quietly from the table and followed the man outside, calling out once he was out the door to keep the man from getting too far ahead of him and leaving.

"What's up, Zex?" Axel reached his hand into his pocket, suddenly aching for a cigarette, something that he hadn't done for a while.

"I wanted to talk to you about Riku," he admitted immediately, watching Axel's expression closely.

"Why? Something wrong? He didn't manage to piss you off, did he?" Now he was obviously wanting to give into his old, dirty, long quit habit as his fingers kept twitching in his pocket in a way that even Zexion could see.

He sighed, fishing one of his own out for his friend. He kept them partially for himself, he would usually need one after work, and partially in case a costumer needed to bum one. He was oddly accommodating to the people who came to drink at the Tavern. Axel took it, eyeing him and then the old addiction for a moment, but then pulled his ever-present lighter out of his other pocket, and lit the stick with a small, "thanks."

"You seem to be growing very fond of the island immigrant." Zexion stated as he took one of the cancerous things out for himself and graciously accepted Axel's flickering flame to light it.

"Mm… Yeah, guess so. It's better than turning to Demyx, right?" He'd meant it as a joke, grinning shyly, though the expression fell at the look that Zexion gave him for the insinuation.

"You need to be careful, Axel. Tread lightly with him." He took a nice, long drag, still watching the other through his sheet of hair.

Axel just smiled sourly. "Aw, Zexy. I didn't know you cared." He flicked the ashes from his cigarette almost angrily. "Don't worry, I'm a big boy. I can handle myself." He turned to walk away, muttering darkly to himself something that Zexion couldn't quite catch. That was until Zexion stopped him, punching the wall right in front of Axel's face. Had the redhead been walking any faster, he would have been hit. Green eyes widened in shock, the smoldering stick falling from his lips to the ground. "…Zex?"

"Don't you get it, Axel?" He growled, letting his anger get the better of him despite how he had been coaching himself to stay calm since he had decided to talk to him. "Don't you see how your messed up relationships affect everyone around you?"

At this, the taller man bristled. "Affect everyone else? Sorry, I guess I've been a little too selfish to notice how my fucked up choices in people ruin everyone else's day. How could I be so stupid?" Sarcasm dripped deep from his every word. He tried to push past Zexion's arm to leave again, but was once more stopped by the smaller of them. Zexion grabbed fist-full's of Axel's shirt and slammed him back against the brick of the building. "The fuck, Zex?!"

"Do you realize what you even did to Demyx? Do you even comprehend how it _broke_ him to see you drunk and crying every night? Did you think that it wouldn't have any effect on him just because he wasn't directly linked to the situation? Were you honestly so short sighted?" He gave Axel a disgusted look. "Because of how you took the problems the two of you were having, he started to hate Roxas, his own friend! He came to me every time that it got to be too much, every time that he thought he was about to snap or hunt Roxas down." Axel tried to look away, but Zexion just slammed him against the wall again. "He worried about you being with the boy all during the summer. In all of those emails that he thinks I never read… You were in all of them, mentioned at least once with his wishes of luck and happiness. He's… Damned if I know why, but he's still worried about you. That you're just replacing Roxas with Riku, that it's all going to be a repeat of before. But he knows that you'd react like this if he tried to say anything to you."

Axel had the decency to look guilty, even if it was begrudgingly so. "I didn't ask or want him to worry," he said softly.

Zexion snorted, letting his hands fall to leave Axel to stand on his own. "Because it shouldn't happen unless you ask for it. So you can't be to blame for any of it just because Demyx has more compassion in one finger than you posses in your entire body."

"What do you want me to say, Zex? That I'm sorry? I didn't know what was going on with him! He never told me he had a problem, and it's obvious that I was already a little too fucked up to notice." Axel was glaring daggers at him. "Look, I won't make problems for your boyfriend, okay? If you're done here, I have places I'd rather be. You should go back in before your master misses his guard dog."

Zexion was dangerously close to losing his temper completely as he threw Axel against the wall once last time, though his hands clenched into fists at his sides to keep from holding him in place there once more. "Then go tell Riku about Roxas. Confess everything to him, and I'll leave you alone until Demyx comes crying to me again. But I warn you, Axel Flynn," he prodded the man's chest with a bony finger, "if Riku comes asking me about what's happening, I will tell him everything. Whether you want to hide it, or it pisses you off, or not. He'll hear everything from me, when I can assure you that he will want to hear it from you." He let Axel storm away, glaring after him with his good eye. He hoped that Axel wouldn't take him lightly on his threat. Zexion had long been of the opinion that the matter of Roxas shouldn't have been hidden as soon as it became apparent that there was some sort of chemistry between the room mates. He had told Demyx as much when they had discussed it one of the nights in his room. He deserved to know that Axel could get quite obsessive over the people that he liked, and that he was easily crushed by them, as had been proven by Roxas.

He walked back inside as soon as he was sure that he had pushed away most of his remaining anger. Demyx, he knew, would see the change in his mood almost immediately, and so he avoided eye contact with him, shaking his head silently when the brunette asked him what was wrong. He didn't say anything until he finally called it a night and bid them all goodnight so that he could go and pick up his work schedule for the next week and go back to his room to think in silence.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

Naminé smiled a happy farewell to Riku, once more thanking him for inviting her to dinner with his uncle. He waved off the polite gesture with a small grin of his own, parting with a promise to see her the next morning at breakfast before forking off the main path on a more direct route through the damp grass to his dorm. As Sephiroth had pulled in to drop them off he'd seen that Axel's truck was parked in his regular spot in the student lots, so he knew to expect his roommate to be in.

What he didn't expect was to find the man in a black mood when he finally trudged up the stairs and opened their door. He would have thought that being out with everyone at the pizza shop would have only improved his already obnoxiously good mood, not darken it to the point where he was sitting in a dark room with only his desk lamp on for light, earphones in and the volume on his computer up loud enough in the silent room for Riku to be able to hear it from the second that he walked in. It went without saying that he really didn't get a greeting from the redhead even as he flicked the light on and set his things down and touched his shoulder gently. The man lurched away from his touch, making Riku frown, and he got a look from over a bony shoulder, but that was it.

"Okay…" Riku settled into his desk chair and pulled it up so that he could sit looking at the other man at an angle that would make it hard to be ignored. "So, you want to tell me who decided to shove a lit explosive up your ass?"

Axel cast him another look, annoyance written deep with anger that was still obviously cooling before he plucked an ear bud out gingerly. "Zexion decided to bring up a sore subject."

Riku didn't bother to hide his shocked look. "Zexion?" That was just odd. Zexion had never, to his knowledge, been one to start fights with people unless it was by ignoring them when they were angry and then lashing back once the confrontation was started. The man had a bad temper, Riku had discovered on the one situation he had seen. But he had never even so much as snapped with real intent to Axel before while Riku had been present. "What in Hades did he say to piss you off this much after tonight?"

"Leave it, Riku," he got in clipped tones. Axel was refusing to face him again. Riku just gave him a look and then shrugged.

"Fine. Guess since I finally gave up being a moody bitch, someone just had to fill the position just so that no one would miss it."

Axel just flipped him off, obviously trying to hold himself back from saying something in return as he bit his lip and jammed the earphone back in. Riku sat for a moment before he decided that he just didn't want to sit in the atmosphere of his roommate's bad mood.

He stood, grabbing his jacket and making sure that he had his keys, not worrying about his phone or wallet since he hadn't gotten the chance to remove them from his pockets. He left without a word to Axel, and the spiky-haired man never acknowledged that he knew Riku was leaving, too wrapped up in his music and whatever else he was doing on his computer. He passed by Demyx and Xigbar's room, fully intending to see if they were back so that he could talk to the shorter of them and see if he knew what had gone on, but he thought better of it and instead went to the source of the problem. He knocked loudly on Zexion's door, leaning impatiently against the door frame. He didn't hear anyone moving around inside, but knew that there was no reason to doubt the man was in there. Zexion always moved quietly.

"Open up, Zexion," he finally growled through the door when he didn't get any response.

It took only a moment longer before he heard the lock turn and the door slowly opened for him. For a minute or two they just stood and stared at each other before Zexion moved aside to let him in and closed the door again.

"I can assume by you expression that you're here because of Axel," the man began.

"Yeah. I decided to come and see just why you thought that pissing him off would be a good idea. We still have three days left of the play, and while he probably won't let that effect his acting, he's going to be a rabid wolf when he's not on stage." Riku crossed his arms over his chest, staring the short man down.

Zexion sighed, gracefully lowering himself into his chair and folding his legs in a way that made them look longer. "Sit down, Riku," he said, motioning to the two chairs and one beanbag- Demyx's- that he had set out for when people came to visit his single. He then sighed again, folding his hands in his lap, looking as if he was trying to figure out where to begin.

"Doubtless, you've heard of the name Roxas Koki." He waited, and Riku nodded. "What do you know of him?"

The silverette shrugged off handedly. "I've heard that he was part of the group last year from Naminé, and that he's from Twilight Town and a studying actor, just like Axel. And that he just didn't show up this year, and he obviously contacted the school about it, since I was assigned to be Axel's roommate instead, since Nam said they had planned on rooming together this year. But I never asked why he never came back. She said that they dated for a while, too…?"

Zexion nodded slowly. "Yes, that's all true, really. But there's a lot that Naminé didn't know and couldn't tell you." He had warned Axel… Riku probably had no idea what was about to be said to him, probably hadn't even seen it coming when he had asked what was going on. So now the redhead was going to see what he already should have known, that when Zexion said he was going to do something, he meant it.

"You see, a lot happened between him and Axel…"

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RyouSeiryuu- Yeah, I actually do say it when I'm tired sometimes. XD It's insane. And I don't mind. Lol, it's not like I coined the phrase, even for Reno. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! ^^

LawlietxRinoa- Ah, no Zemyx yet. Sorry! But it's getting there. I assure you that it is on the horizon. :3 Promise!

Envious Invidia- D: I am sorry that I made you wait so long! I appreciate you sticking with me, though. It makes me insanely happy that I still have readers, even when I fail so terribly at updating. Hopefully I'll be able to write a lot more now that I'm back at school and not working till summer.

Marlin Lette- Glad I'm not the only one, lol. You should rent it! It's good, even for it being from the 90s. I'm just hoping that I don't end up confusing people too much when I wrote all the play pieces. 0-0

Rulisu- ;w; Thank you so much! I always try hard to stay in character with them, but make it seem so believable. Like you could run in to a toned down (physically) version of them on the streets. And I hate doing (and reading, in nearly all cases) immediate character changes. It just doesn't make sense that way. You gotta lead up to those kinds of things.

Alright! Well, that was 20 pages to make up for my failure at getting this up any sooner! ^w^ Oooooh, what is Zexion telling Ri-Ri? Well, you'll just have to see, won't you? The next chapter won't start with that, I will tell you that now so you won't think that you missed something, but the discussion will eventually be mentioned. Until then, I leave you all, and I hope that you enjoyed the chapter.


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